Talkin' Baseball (MLB Podcast) - 25 | Sept 30 | Playoffs Are Coming & Managers are Goin

Episode Date: September 30, 2019

Maddon, Hurdle and Ausman are out. There are now six open spots for managers in 2020. The Indians missed the playoffs entirely and the Cardinals held on to win the NL Central. The Cubs had some fun despite not reaching their goal, and we talk about the postseason matchups.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices 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.

What's going on? Welcome back to talking baseball. The regular season has concluded and the postseason is about to commence. We got a lot to talk about. What's going on, everybody? Welcome back to talking baseball. We are back in action and gearing up for a crazy, crazy run of playoff baseball and talking baseball episodes. My name's John Boy.

I'm coming to you from New Jersey. I'm my co-host, Jake. Coming to you from Denver. we are back in our respected houses after a long weekend together in Maine. It's been crazy. The MLB starts with 30 teams every year. 20 of them have been eliminated. The top 10 are going to the postseason.

Two wild card games coming up. Divisional series coming up. A lot of managers got fired. A lot of stuff happened, Jake. this is going to be a little different of an episode. It's not going to be the format that we've been doing for the regular season, and we probably will not be doing that format until next season. So we'll talk more.

I'll let Jake say hi first. I've been talking for a while. How you doing Jake? Yeah, I'm all right, Jim. Hey, no, you're doing the big stuff. Yeah, we're, what Jimmy will lead into is that we are going to be pumping out so much stuff onto your feed. Check that feed. That's my new October motto.

Check that feed for talking baseball. We're pretty much going to be going every day. It's going to be insane. We're excited about it. From now until October 21st every day. It's kind of unbelievable, man, that the regular season is over. And it's crazy that there's no, there's like not a good segue. Hopefully these wild card games are a set.

segue. I have to live up to my deed of blacking out for one of the wildcard games. I haven't picked which one yet. I'm thinking lean in Milwaukee, maybe with our friend Jeff there. But yeah, man, it's crazy. I mean, we totally disconnected for a couple days for our buddy's wedding. The timing actually worked out great. But it's funny. We kind of jump into, you have like these regular season games. You have some intense ones. Then these, a couple of these, most of these games 10 in the year are like lower than spring training games. Yeah. So to now kick it back up to 10, it's going to be going to be pretty wild, but it's exciting,

man. It's exciting until basically Friday morning for us when we'll have just a pit in our stomach for a little bit and then let the games commence. Yeah. And our schedule, if you want to be somewhat in the know, because it is wild, is that every night that there are games the next morning slash afternoon we will be talking so if you want to come view live on patreon we will be in the morning you can listen live if you wait for the podcast app it'll probably be in the afternoon they'll drop like usual um so that's what we are excited

about so tomorrow's episode so this is going to be dropping monday the 30th tomorrow's the first we'll drop an episode in the morning and it'll just be about the wild card game that's about to be played, kind of a deep dive into the players and what, it's probably 20 minutes max. Then the next day, we'll talk about that game. Next day we'll talk about the next game.

Every game we're going to talk about it's going to be insane. If you have baseball fans, so say, you know, it's Cardinals Braves. Go tell your Cardinals and Braves fans, talking baseball is going to be to episodes, previewing and recapping their games with our thoughts, our things, whatever,

and in our style and our tone. So I think it's going to be insane. We're strapping in. We took the week off. We needed it. A lot happened, Jake. We have our playoff lineup or schedule. Whatever you want to do is set.

In the American League, finished Astros on top. Yankees won the East. Twins win the Central. A's get that first wild card spot. They will be hosting the Rays. The Indians do not make it. In the National League, Dodgers with the best record, Braves below them. Cardinals win the Central.

the nationals in the top wildcard spot and the brewers came down to the last day they had a shout at the division on the last day the cardinals uh put that to rest in like the second inning eight nothing after three i believe so the brewers get the second wild card spot they'll be going to dc to play that game but before we deep dive into these matchups there's a lot a lot that happened we had madden out as the Cubs manager. Hurtle out. The Mets did some fun things and some end of the year games.

Where do you want to start, Jake? Ooh, that's a good question, Jim. I think I want to start with, I think we owe Cleveland a goodbye. Yeah. There was a while there where we thought two good teams were going to miss the playoffs

because we assume that the Cubs were going to keep it up, but they crapped the bed for lack of a better term. And Cleveland is heads and shoulders, the best team to not be in this postseason. They would have been a tough game, tough series for anyone with how much pitching they have and how much experience they have. It's going to be interesting to see what they've got going on going forward. Is someone like, is it shop Frankie Lindor time?

That bidding war would be insane. Dude, when did the raise clinch? Do you know, like, what day it happened? The raise clinched. I want to, was it Saturday? I don't know. We were three days ago. So, so it might have been Saturday night.

Friday night or Saturday. Dude, the Indians lost five straight, 10 the season. The white socks broke them. I mean, that sucks. It's brutal. I mean, they're the only 90 plus win team to not get into the playoffs. the only 80-win team, 89 wins for Milwaukee.

And, yeah, I mean, if you're Cleveland, you have this young core of pitchers that are up and coming, Beaver, Savali, we go through the names pretty much every week one would hop up on Enfuego or one of them would have a great pitching performance. The future is bright there, but there's got to be some big moves coming. And let's be honest, I mean, the big thing,

there was that awesome moment when Jose Ruebvre. Ramirez comes back in his first game and he hits two home run seven RBIs. And you're like, okay, this Cleveland team, they are back in the mix. Because when they had Jose Ramirez this year playing good baseball, they were one of the best teams in baseball. He had a terrible start. He gets hurt. He comes back and he tries to fight it.

But it was too little too late. And I mean, it's also a credit to, A, Minnesota for fending them off. and Minnesota finishes with 101 wins. We'll see what they do in the postseason against the eerily similar offensive numbers of the Yankees. And credit, Oakland and Tampa, man, those teams just went pedal to the floor the rest of the way. They knew what they had to do, and they did it.

So I don't know. If you're Cleveland, you obviously want to be in the playoffs. I mean, that's, I don't need to say that. But at the same time, it's still like a golf clap. Like, you just kind of got beat, right? No, I don't know. You just pissed. Be mad.

Did you see Savali? He hadn't given up more than two earned runs all season. Well, he got called up in June and August. And then with the, with like the season on the line, 3.1 innings pitched, four runs, like his worst start of his career. It's just kind of a bummer. He's so good. to end it like that to the white socks that sucks breaking news jake osmuth just got fired from the angels

boom let's do the managers getting fired yeah it could have seen that one coming i mean osmiss was just a lazy hiring so boom i don't know why they did that anyway yeah so madden's out and now he's going to be coveted as a manager to get hurdles out i don't think he'll be coveted um osmiss is out so teams looking for managers his podres angels, giants, because Bochy's retiring. Cubs. Cubs, royals. There's a lot.

Pirates. Holy shit, there's a lot, dude. That's six teams looking for a new manager. Yeah, I'd have to look year over year. I think that's a little higher than normal. Well, because the trend now is to get first year managers, right? Yeah, and we also had two like straight up retirements with Ned Yost and Bochie. I guess you don't see that all the time.

And yeah, I mean, it's like you said, and we were together and we were talking about the Joe Madden firing, and they did the press conference together. And I know you weren't, you kept asking the question, why? Just why did they do that? And I don't know. I just, I think we're at this day and age of sports where a new voice or a new person is so exciting that the Cubs were trying to do this like kumbaya we had a great run but you know it has to come to an end now and it's i don't know the yankees did a half similar thing with gerardy they went their separate ways because they wanted a new voice in there um so yeah i mean madden's going to be coveted i wonder if he does a year of tv stuff um because at the same time organizations don't like paying

managers anymore. Like we, that's not how baseball works because the front office calls 90% of the shots anyways. So if Madden's looking for a big price tag, I don't know if he's going to get it from anywhere. How many managers are we going to have that are like don't even have five years under their belt? Probably a lot.

A ton, right? Yeah. But I do think Gerardi, Buck, and Madden will get picked up for three of those spots. And those are managers that have been around. Girardi to the Cubs feels like, I mean, if you had to take early guesses, Gerardy to the Cubs feels like that's going to be, you know what I'll say? I'll say that's going to be a long interview. Like, they're going to take that seriously.

Gerardy to the Cubs. You like Buck to the Padres. I mean, I was dreaming pretty hard about that. That would be cool. I could see Madden there too. Yeah. Madden to the Angels or any of the. these guys are the angels buck to the angels whatever and then did you hear um

ross from the cubs has interested in managing yeah david ross from the cubs and and there's quotes from brian and riz are like well he was basically a manager when he was here like he was pretty fun and loose but he would tell you he would be brutally honest with you too at times and so that's like what a manager does so and i mean that's that's kind of right out of the boon cora playbook uh so you could definitely see that Um, the royals, royals in Pittsburgh feel like it's got to be young, energetic guys. Um, but like, Jim, think about what I just said. And we, we talked about this. I forget what team we were talking about. Um, someone was, what, what organization was going to hire? Is Mathini who the royals were talking about? And you were just like, that's a lazy hire.

Yeah. It's, it really is interesting because it is kind of this catch 22. Do you bring in a buck? showalter who's done it at so many organizations and you kind of know what you're going to get it's going to be professional you're going to get a turnaround at some point i mean what book showalter did with the orioles kind of gets overlooked uh with the yankees and socks and even what the rays have been doing the blue jays were really good he had the orioles being competitive for a while and now look where they've gone back to uh but yeah it that's that's kind of tough do you go with the buck or do you go with the young, sexy, 38-year-old manager that's new age and he likes analytics and all that stuff.

I don't know. The other two names are Carlos Beltron and Jason Giambi. Is Jason Giambi even coaching anymore anywhere? Where is he at? When he was with the Indians, there was like a lot of talk that Jason Giambi's going to get a manager's job. Like he is a player's manager. I think he's out of the MLB right now.

I wonder what he's doing. And then Carlos Beltron is also, he got interviewed for the Yankees job. He's incredibly respected around the league. So those are two names that always get thrown out. But you never know, man. Like Brandon Hyde kind of came out of nowhere for the Orioles last year. It's always, it can be just a random guy who's been in baseball forever. That the common name people, we don't, like we don't know.

Like, oh, him? Okay, cool. And I do think that there's, you know, a lot of teams obviously go out. and you said the Cubs are going to have a long interview with Girardi, and I think you're right. I think there is kind of this world of baseball now where you can win over the room in an interview. If you have some stuff, like isn't the twins pitching coach a guy that never,

he didn't pitch in the major leagues, he didn't coach at a high level, but he basically could add two mile per hours to anyone's fastball, so they're like, pick them up. So I think there's there's a way to do it. I, you know, calling back to some past episodes. Hey, if you're one of these organizations, bring in someone who teaches hitting from the Yankees, bring in someone who teaches pitching from Houston, enjoy the World Series. Enjoy the World Series.

We have a Ozzy Mandias. I don't know how you say that in the chat. He did some research for us real quick, which I love. He's a Patreon member. so he's doing research for us and the Patreon members that sponsored this show are Anthony Granchelli

Jason Jorlami Ryan Niren Parker Clevejo and Josh DeVries I think I typed a lot of these wrong I got a new keyboard and the space and the fingers is different so I've just been typing like one letter to the right

Holy smokes Yeah I think that first name's Anthony but I typed Am to Japun homer me Yeah that's not No no vowel sir. So anyway, Azimand Diaz in the chat

says the longest tenured manager in MLB right now is Bob Melvin in 2011 and behind him is A.J. Hinch 2014. So it is just a revolving door league. It's the new

I mean, it makes a little more sense in football or basketball because you can come in and you can really, you could spice up a program or it was the hot thing for a while to bring in the hot college football coach and, you know, he could, any, any college football program can be turned around with one recruiting class and the right playbook. Baseball is kind of not that way. But I don't know. I hope Bob Melvin

becomes more of the example because I was actually, I was wondering coming into this playoffs, are there any managers that could lose their job if their team loses in the playoffs? And none None came to mind. Maybe something jumps out to you. But Bob Melvin might have some of the best job security in baseball. He's been doing a really solid job in Oakland. They just always end up where they end up, it feels like. Yeah, it's also because the expectations aren't too high in Oakland.

Sure. Like if they have this, like if they lose in the wild card, all of Oakland will say that was a successful season. Oh, not the real one. They'll come at your neck for that. I think like the Oakland's front office because they're like, hey, with our funds, that was pretty good. Right. And they play that game forever.

And that's why a lot of my friends, when I lived in the Bay Area, fucking hated the ownership of the A's because they, they project them as this like David versus Goliath. And then when they win round one but lose the battle, they're like, we won round one. We made it to the playoffs. That's pretty good as a David. And all my friends were like, fuck you. go spend money and let's have the let's have the or the want to be Goliath

like this is it's annoying to play small and then celebrate small victories every year well maybe they won't be celebrating small this year be cool but I don't see it happening doesn't seem likely no

no no no um I was just going to Google something and say something but forget you know what think it has a tough a tough second year ahead of him. David Bell for the Reds. The Reds are an interesting team. I think this is more offseason talk, but I think they're going to go out and spend a little more. I think they are going to go all in for next year,

and if things fall apart, they'll kind of do like the Marlins tradeoff. Like, I'm going to freak out some of my Yankee fans, but, you know, what if the Reds went out and signed like a D.D. Gregorius or something like that, where he started his career kind of full circle. You know, they empty the truck. You bring in a shortstop, a lefty bat. But that's talking Reds off season. We got to let them go. Yeah.

Just my one, the reason why I said it was because they, where is it? I mean, he got ejected a million times. Right. And I think the Pythagorean theorem for them says they should have been much better than they were. Okay. And that's usually like one way to judge a manager. But it's kind of a silly way. But I think Bill James said it's a good way to judge a manager or whatever.

But if he comes out next year, I think then we might have a revolving door again. So, Jim, again, I was thinking about this. and I think I just stumbled into one thing. But I, because, you know, when, when Gerardi was leaving the Yankees, it was pretty well known it was going to happen. No, it was one of your. Well. It shocked everyone.

Gerardi? Gerardy left in tears and all of the writers and the, when I, when I broke the news, people said I was making up a giant lie just for clicks. Like it shocked everyone. Right. They were saying that because you had never reported news before. No, no, that was a shocking. everyone thought Gerardy would return.

Even the beat reporters, at the end of the season, everyone was like, he has to return. We were making jokes on Talking Yanks like, just say, hey, how much do you want in five more years? That shocked everyone. No, I disagree with that. I think it was that the stars were kind of lining up for that, that they weren't going to bring him back.

Otherwise, they would have offered him a contract. Even if they won a World Series, we found out they weren't going to bring them back. Yes, but that wasn't known. Like, I think we can pull up our Talking Yanks episode. and I think both of us said, of course, he's coming back. I don't know. I think it was pretty open, but we can dig into that another time.

But Jim, for all the teams that are in the postseason, I think it's funny, like Astros, they love Hinch. He's not going anywhere even if they have a bad exit. They've had an incredible year. Boone is up for manager of the year. He's good. Baldelli on the Twins is up for the manager of the year. And then the A's in the race.

The A's love Melvin. The rays are in with cash. So, I mean, all the A.L guys are safe, right? I think so, yeah. I think it's funny. I initially started there, and I was like, wow, that's pretty impressive. The only guy who might be in trouble would be Dave Roberts, right? Yeah, I don't even know if it's him, but...

Because the Brewers love counsel. The Nationals had a great bounce back year. The Cardinals same. Braves made this kind of meteoric rise And within the NL The Dodgers, they're the only team If they have a quick exit Or any exit, like Roberts could be done, right?

I think it would more like not be like, Hey, Dave Roberts is bad, But like, we got to change stuff And we got to take a deep look in the media. I think it's similar to Gerardi. That's what I was trying to compare it to. Yeah. Well, Gerardi, like we found out,

afterwards that the decision was made in 2016 on Girardi. Right. But it was surprising when it was actually happening. But yeah, I don't know. I don't know. We'll see. I think Madden's going to get a job right away.

And I think Gerardy and Buck have both public said they want to manage again. If there's one that seems like the bet to place, it seems like Gerardi to the Cubs. Yeah. Charity to the Cubs, Madden to the Angels. They already have reports out there saying that they're interested. Who isn't? Everyone's going to be interested in Madden.

Yeah. And that separation is weird to me. Like, why does Madden, I guess it's a better look if he sits down at the table with the Cubs and says, yeah, I wanted to leave to. It's just not working out. But like, job security, like we just said in the MLB is crazy. If why would, why would like, that's why I understand the United States. front that they had because it looks better for both parties.

But behind closed door, I think Madden's crazy. If he was like, yeah, I think we'll just separate here because job security is nuts. And the way things are going. I mean, like you're saying, though, I think there's the other side of that is Madden can get any of these jobs. I mean, if Madden comes in at the same price tag for any of these jobs, they'd hire Madden. And I wouldn't be shocked to see him end up in San Diego. San Diego is the better situation than the Angels, but people think L.A. and Trout.

San Diego's still got the top farm system. They've got so many young players. They've got a little bit of a budget there. I mean, that's like Madden when he was with the raise and they had all their young talent, and when he was with the Cubs and they had a paycheck and everything going on. So I don't know. I'm sure we're going to hear all sorts of rumors throughout the coming weeks. Yeah, that's going to be annoying. I hate how MLB does their rumors.

How the reporters do it, it's brutal. Sorry. It's my least favorite part about the offseason. It's just how MLB writers handle rumors. It's terrible. Anyway, the other cool stories both come from the Mets, man. Alonzo broke the home run record and was really excited about it. And then Dom Smith, who was injured in the last game of the season,

he gets one at bat. he returns from the injured list gets one at bat and it happens to be a walk off home run to end the season and the Mets were super excited about it which it's fine I gotta do a breakdown of it and it's gonna be really hard for me to not throw like just jabs oh because you will um because it's embarrassing can I be honest it's embarrassing the the Mets do the same cycle they think they're going to be good then they think they're going to be absolutely terrible. Then they're kind of good and they enjoy the ride and then they don't make it. And then they act like a Midwest team and just clap for like, hey, you know, we had fun though.

It's like, what's going on? Do you hate your team? Do you have unrealistic expectations? And then you just get excited. Like, they're like, let's go match chance. Yeah, I mean, Jim, so this is something that we've discussed before. briefly is that you don't fully know the pain of an awful franchise. And for me, that's the New York Knicks.

So I can relate some of those parallels to the Metropolitan's. I mean, this is a building stone. This is a stepping stone for them to it. Or that's what they're telling themselves. The Mets last year, their record was 77 and 85. This year they improved to 86 and 76, so like 10 games better. They're technically the first team, of the wild card in the NL with the Cubs going to shit.

So that's what when you're a fan of a franchise like that, you need to find these things to grab onto. So if you're a Mets fan, you say, hey, we took a little bit of a jump this year. We got Stro Show coming back next year. Alonzo's a stud. We're going to be amazing next year. And I hope for some Mets fans, they're right.

I hope next year they improve another 10 or so and they win 95 games. But as a fan of that team, you have to brainwash yourself that that stuff is important. If it was the White Sox or the Royals and their season ended that way, I totally understand just the full celebration.

These guys were in a playoff hunt three days ago, Jake. Like their expectations were to be in the playoffs three days ago. It's a very cool moment, very happy for D. but if you're like and this is how the season ended and it's how crazy they were going celebrating at home plate you'd think they just clinched but they didn't they're not whatever it's weird

I can't I can't I know that I sound like an old person like hey you know let them celebrate some things but it's like oh no man there's something weird about how hard they celebrated that as a team yeah I don't know I mean we don't know everything that went on behind the scenes may Maybe they were going out to a big party later if they all won. You know, maybe they're just having a good time, man. You know, baseball is such a grind. They didn't miss the postseason. That probably sucked because they convinced themselves.

You got to believe. Mets fans will always convince themselves. You got to believe. So they had a little fun on the last day. I don't know. Knock yourself out, Mets. It wasn't a little fun. They went fucking crazy.

The whole stadium went crazy. That's like, this is awkward. They went more crazy than when Yankees celebrated. Jeter's walk off in his last day at the stadium. Even that was a little benign with Yankee fans. They're like, well, some took it too far. This was like nuts. Pete Alonzo was running around and going like, wow.

Oh, wow. It's like, what are we doing? Whatever, weird. Celebrating fun. Wired me out. The home run record's kind of fun. But I was happy for Pete there. Like, he really wanted it.

So that's cool. Yeah, man. And it's, I mean, 53 is still insane. number. I mean, you know, Mets and Yanks fans of Bicker on the internet for life about the juice ball and everything. He's got the record. I wonder if we see it fall again soon with Judge 2017 Alonzo now. It wouldn't be shocking to see another young guy come up soon. Or maybe this was just the blip. Maybe the ball changes. But you'd like to think with the more power hitters coming up, maybe we're going to see more of this going forward. But an incredible year for Alonzo.

And again, kudos to the Mets. And Jim, the other thing here, this was Brody Van G.M.'s first year. And they technically got better. And they started Alonzo from the start of the season. So there's some good positivity in Metsland right now. Enjoy it. You lost. What I think is there's two kinds of Mets fans. There's happy go lucky.

And then there's like mad at the world angry. Right. Maybe one person isn't both, like they don't teeter, but the fact that both exist is so funny. And I think you might even figure it out the storm there, because I'm picturing both those people in the stands for this Mets game. And I've got the down miserable Mets fan like celebrating this in a mockingly crazy fashion like they were. And I've got the happy go lucky Mets fan doing the same thing. So maybe those people came together for one special day in Queens. It's a crazy moment.

Like rehabbing, coming back, one at bat, and it's a walk-off home run. It is fucking insane. It's pretty cool. Yeah. He was excited. I mean, he was against the Braves who were doing nothing, though. Anything else? We had Cole Hamels and Yaddy getting a little beef.

And, uh, yeah, he's the worst, man. I love him. He's the best and the worst. worst. Like if I was a Cardinals fans, I would love Yaddy Molina and I would defend him as annoyingly as all of you defend him. But I mean, did you see this exchange? No. Okay. So Cole Hamill's in the second inning hits Yadi with his second pitch, which just grazes the arm. Yeah. And clearly not on purpose. Hamels is pissed that he let him off. The Cardinals are trying to clinch. They're trying to beat the, get it so it doesn't come down to the last day,

but they lost the day before. So there's frustration with the Cardinals. And I think Yaddi's trying to get his team going and like get some energy right away. And he just starts John at Hamels. And then Hamils was like, well, fuck that. I'm not going to let you just like use me to motivate your club. So Hamill's like yells back.

Like, what the fuck are you saying? Took the bait. And then, no, and then Yadi kind of backed off. And then Yaddi was like apologizing at first base. Like, sorry, man.

sorry, I'm like, what are you doing? Look at that. You look silly. Love Yaddy. If we were Cardinals fans, I'd probably have a Molina tattoo. And that's the scope I try to view it through because that's, I mean, we're fans. The Brett Gardner hitting the top of the dugout thing, we were not too proud to say, like, if we saw that from another fan's perspective, the 36-year-old Brett Gardner banging the top

of the dugout with a bat, we'd be like, okay, what's going on, dude? Yeah, you got to chill out. We have so many people that reach out about Brett Gardner and they think he's like a red ass. I'm like, nah, dude, he's like the team prankster. Like elaborate pranks. I'm sure if we watched Yadi day in, day out for the past more than a decade that he's been in St. Louis, we'd be preaching about him.

I said that already. But even I've read a bunch of forums, even like Cardinal Sanders, like that was a bad look, man. Like he clearly didn't hit you on purpose. And like you like were screaming at him. But I don't think it worked either. I think it fired up the Cubs and they beat him. and then the last day of the season,

the Cardinals whooped him. Whooped him. You got anything else where we go into playoffs? I mean, you had the twins set the most home runs in a season. Yanks finished one short of them. I think we had three teams that would have beaten the record this year. It's kind of a future that baseball's going this way. Hey, the Minnesota Twins.

You know, that's, you did a couple of. references to Midwest teams or the Mets celebrating like a Midwest team. Little coastal bias there, but we appreciate that. I lived in Chicago for a while, so it's some, I did some research. He's got it. He was researching those couple years in Chicago. James, the twins, if you're a diehard twins fan, there was probably a couple years when you were at, if you told the Minnesota Twins fans that they would set the home run record as a team one day. I think they would have laughed at you. Yeah, that's true.

I mean, they used to, and Jim, maybe this is what you should send it at the Oakland Athletics, because you talk about them enjoying just getting to the dance too much. The Twins, man, I mean, they were, they were the team. They were with the A's and the raise that they didn't have money and they, you know, they would have someone become a star and then they'd have to get rid of them, Johann Santana. You know, they could only keep, they could only pay so many guys and the twins had to keep doing it, refreshing their farm system. They went out and they paid a little.

They got Nelson Cruz and he had another crazy year. They signed Scoop. Am I saying that right? Scroop. So, I mean, shout out to the twins. That's huge for them. That's huge for them. I know there will be people that look back and say,

juice ball, and we know your feelings on that ballpark a little bit, but I do think they had more homers on the road. it's a crazy good season for the twins shout out to them and and rocko Rocco baldelli I love this quote so I'll share it I don't know how much it is I guess this is just talk about what we like but Yankees have a history of beating the twins and the playoffs like that's not recent in wild card game last year but or two years ago

but not like super recent mostly 2010 and you know 2000 2010 I guess and twins fans know it yeah he's fans know it but it's totally different teams and all that stuff now. And they asked Rocco Baldelli, like, do you, are you aware of the twins history against the Yankees in the postseason? And his response was, honestly, I'm not. And I don't care at all. That has no bearing on this team.

And I was like, good answer, Rocco, because it doesn't. A thousand percent right. But those twins teams, who was quoted? Like a couple years later, they said, like, yeah, if we matched up with the Yankees in like, oh nine, like we just went in there with no faith. Like we were like, well, this is going to suck. And that's when it really does matter when it's the same guys in the clubhouse. Yeah.

And I mean, there's got to be a couple guys that are left over from that wild card game a couple years ago. But that was, I mean, one game at the stadium. And the twins were like, they weren't. That was like they sold at the deadline and then still made the wild card. Right. So that was like they weren't. That was a very much like happy to be here. And it was fine.

Like that's, you should be happy to be there. that's this year's much different. They have big expectations. So yeah, we'll see. We're going to go deep dive into like the actual games on future episodes like we said. But let's talk a little bit about just the matchups. Yeah. Where do you want to start in the National League?

Braves Cardinals. Braves Cardinals is fun, man. You know I'm locked into my baby Braves. Dude, we're going to see some young fun pitchers in this one. it'll be interesting to see who those guys kind of tells the story of their season. I know you fell in love with Soroka. Is it Soroka and Flerty?

Because that's an amazing... Aren't they high school teammates? I don't know if that was released yet. No, it was Freed. Freed and Flaherty or high school teammates. So that's cool. That is cool. But yeah, I mean, freed, Flaherty.

You're going to see... was the guy I just mentioned, the Soroka, your guy. It'll be interesting to see who, you know, who shows out in the postseason. I think Flaherty right now is a little bit of a Trump card. His second half is unreal. But that could go one of two ways. I mean, if the Braves clip Flaherty, they're going to feel like, ooh, we got them. Like, that's their dude.

And vice versa, I mean, if Flaherty wins, I think if you're the Braves, you could kind of wash your hands and be like, okay, that dude's kind of ridiculous. Yeah. Dude, I'm reading an article that says Soroka is going to be the game three starter. Saloka. Dallas Keiko game one. And then Fultenewitz. How you saw that guy's name?

Fultanewitz. I'm like that. You're all around it. But who knows? Yeah, I don't know. I maybe Soroka's got some good home starts or maybe for the play. No, no, no. He's really good on the road. He's bad at home, Soroka. Oh, there you go.

And he's only 22 years old, so they're thinking maybe it's less pressure in the away stadium. Yeah, and I mean, Dallas Keikl, it's part of the reason they brought this dude in. He has a ton of playoff experience. I kind of love them throwing Keikle game one. Yeah, I like the experience stuff. I think it's, I think you break down that wall with a guy who doesn't mind breaking down the wall. because if you have 22-year-old Soroka in game one, he's been your best pitcher. But, I mean, that's a lot to take in. Like, we saw that with Louis Severino as Yankee fans in the wildcar.

Like, he just fucking got body slammed by that wall of playoff baseball. Like, nope, you're not ready for this. So you have to let them observe a game first. I think it's a pretty sound strategy to have the experienced guy go game one, which is why I think Tanaka for the Yankees should go game one in Paxton game too. I think there's some logic to that that applies. Yeah, and I guess you could do a whole thing there

because at least Paxton has more experience than some of these young brave guys. You know, they're kids. They're kids. It's going to be interesting. I mean, does this series come down to bullpins or should I be swearing by my top four in that Braves lineup or what?

Starting pitching, right? You think the starting pitchers just going to be match for match? Well, I think Flaherty's a Trump card. I mean, Soroka's awesome, but I think what Jack Flaherty did this second half, you know, not a lot of guys in baseball have been able to do something like that. Yeah, and I guess Dakota Hudson's a guy that we haven't shouted out too much yet. He goes 16 and 7 this season with a 335 ERA in his age 24 season. So I guess, and Jim, I was just going to say maybe the young pitching becomes the stories of the series. series, yet at the same time, there's Adam Wainwright hanging around.

We just talked about Dallas Keikle getting the ball in game one. This series feels like it's going to be, are the veterans going to step up? Are we going to be talking about Yadir Molina? Are we going to be talking about Goldschmidt? Are we going to be talking about these old dogs that have done it, Keikl, Donaldson? Or is this series going to be the introduction to Ronald Acuna? Is this going to be the introduction? Introduction.

Intradution. Introduction. You've been introduced. You know, Marcel Ozuna on the big stage for one of the first times in his career. I don't know. I don't know. I mean, I think you have to lean Braves. I kind of threw my hat big time into the Braves bucket.

I just think their top is so strong. I just hope the story kind of, well, this Cardinals bullpen might have a leg up on him too. Carlos Martinez, Gallegos has come on. out of nowhere. Andrew Miller's chilling down there. You wonder if his postseason experience kicks in a little more for them. I don't know. How about this? I'm

hoping that this series doesn't come down to bullpins because I think that would be bad news for both teams. What's bad news a little bit for the Cardinals is that because they had to win that last game of the season to win the division, they threw Flaherty.

Yeah. Which takes him out of the game one running. So he cannot be their game one pitcher. You can pitch twice in the series still, but it would be games two and five. Good to have him as your fifth, but you'd like to have been able to get him one four. Yeah. Yeah. If they can get it to that game five, though, in Flaherty, that that'd be a tough, that'd be a tough team to bet against. That's going to be a fun series. That is going to be a fun series. I, like, you know I'm a big storyline guy. and I think it's either going to be the young pups or the old dogs.

And I don't know which one it is yet. I'm rooting for the young pups because you know how much I love Akuna and those guys and Flaherty too. But I don't know. That's why guys like Wainwright and Yachty. They just don't die. Donaldson. Friken Kikil.

Now I'm excited. Okay, cool. Okay, cool. The other one that we know the matchup for is the Yankees and the twins. Yeah. which will be interesting. Two of the lesser starting pitching matchups and more of like, who knows? Like it might be like the old brewers from last year, just throwers, you know.

I think Paxton and Tanaka are the only two of the Yankees will use as full gear starting pitchers. Tanaka may even have a shorter leash than you would, a pitcher would have had five years ago. But I think Paxton won't. But I trust Tanaka as a Yankees fan. But it'll be interesting. The upside is the Yankees bowl. bullpen is so much better. If they can hand a lead to their bullpen or a tie game goes to both bullpens, the Yankees

bullpen is still one of the best in baseball. So that's the advantage. The lineups are both powerhouse hitting in lineups. So it'll be, I mean, we might have sloppy games or we might have, I think they're going to be sloppy. When you say sloppy, what do you mean? High scoring. Okay. either like just high scoring i guess like not like clean games okay interesting yeah um i mean the twins

eight guys with 20 plus homers five guys with 30 plus homers i mean these literally the two team the only two teams ever to hit 300 plus home runs uh it'll be interesting to see how that translates to the playoffs and the twins wind tunnel stadium the yankees with the short porch um yeah you wonder i we did this a couple episodes back. I personally think if the twins, if the twins want to do this, they need Barrios and Odorizzi to be special. I think for the Yankees, it's nice. Whatever they can get out of their starting pitching is huge. And they're guys that can do it. Masahiro Tanaka, 30 career playoff innings to a 1-5 ERA. He can do it. James Paxton is, what, 10 in his last 10 starts? Like James Paxton, when he's right, he can be really good.

and Severino. Severino's come back. He's their best pitcher when he's right. We're still not sure how far they'll push him in the postseason. But the Yankees are just looking for basically four good innings out of their starters. The twins can't do that every game. Joe's McFly is part of John Boy Media. He hosts a Yankees podcast on our network.

He filled in for Jake on talking Yanks last week. And I don't know if you heard this, Jake, but we were talking about how excited we are playoff baseball. And he was like, oh, playoff baseball is a whole other animal. And Joe's goes, a walk is a rally. Yeah. And with the Yankees and the twins and their ability to hit home runs, that's the

truest thing. Like a walk is a rally. Now a home run's worth two. I mean, that's probably the best way I can sum up this series and the pressure on the pitchers. One base runner on is going to feel like a rally. Okay, let's do it. And that's what I mean, when you look at this Minnesota bullpen, I mean, Taylor Rogers had a really solid year, but he doesn't, I don't know if he has any postseason experience. I should click now.

But it's a lot of guys that had solid years, Tyler Duffy, Trevor May. But if you haven't done it in the playoffs yet, it kind of doesn't matter. And that's just where we feel things get just favor the Yankees so much more because, I mean, Zach Britton has done it before. He's a guy that's been one of the best relievers in the game. Araldis Chapman, he's special when he's right. The twins don't have a big fear factor. Maybe they'll prove us all wrong and these guys dig in for something deep.

but it just seems like the offenses are crazy similarly matched, which I was looking at the stats today, and they really are. It's like one home run difference. It's like five runs different throughout 162 game season. So it just feels like it feels like that Yankees bullpen is the differentiator. Yeah. If they can hand over like a tie game or a lead and they're firing on all pistols and they have like five guys to eat up five innings,

that can get, it's intense. because you're banking on five guys to be good, but those guys are solid banks, if that makes sense. And this is something we've harped on all season. The Minnesota Twins are 32 and 37 against teams with a better than 500 record this year, which and the Yankees are above 543 and 32, so you think there's something there.

And I think the other big thing that I would have circled is that the twins have been great on the road this year. The twins are 55 and 26 on the road this year. Jimmy, the Yankees haven't lost a home series in their past 21 home series, I believe. I think they're 18-0 and 3. So the games at the stadium, I think, are going to matter a little more because the twins have made good bread on the road and the Yankees haven't lost at home. This is more of a talking Yanks thing, but I'll let you guys into my Yankees bias a little bit.

Yankee Stadium in the 2017 ALCS, Houston players said they were intimidated. They came in, they lost three games. They were like, damn, that was a tough place to play. The Cleveland Indians said the same thing. Last year, the Red Sox stomped the Yankees so quick that it never got a chance to be a loud atmosphere. The twins, they may get a little of that same like, oh my God,

if Yankee Stadium can be the fucking accordion that it is at times. Yeah, and I mean the first two games, I mean, you could say this about every playoff series, but the Yankees are clearly expecting to hold, serve, and win the first two games. Like I just said, they haven't lost a home series since middle of April. The twins have their good home record. The twins need to steal one of the first two to have a chance in this series. Yeah. And then the other two are the wild cards.

We don't know that Dodgers will play the winner. The Astros will play the winner. The rays are flying to Oakland, which is great. We avoided a wild card game in the TROP. Congrats to everyone who watches games. And the Brewers were a win and a loss. And the game 162, they could have won the division. They don't.

Do they get the top wildcard? No, they're the away team. They got to go to D.C. and face Strasper or face Scher. I think with Strasbourg coming out of the pen in the wildcard game, I think is what there might be their strategy there. So it would be interesting. But like I said, we're going to have deep dives on those games. Tomorrow will be, you know, kind of a 20-minute, like, preview of the wildcard game.

I think we kind of covered everything to end the season. Yeah. Well, again, we'll deep dive tomorrow. Do you want to say who you got in the wild card games or no? Tease it? Are we going to do that? That's a teaser. That's how you keep them coming back.

You want to make predictions? And so. Not like actual predictions. I don't like doing that. It's so ESPN sticky and then people are like, you took this. And it's like, I'm not confident in that pick.

I don't like the prediction game. But it's like a staple. I don't know. I have a no one. Cool. I guess I have the home teams just because I'll just ride chalk. Home team. Chalking it.

Yeah, I like that. I like that. Milwaukee, Washington, there's a little David and Goliath there. I mean, the Brewers, everyone's been wondering how they've done it without yellage. Washington has a lot of talent. Washington has a crazy run differential. I know you mentioned the Pythagorean records before. Washington's is 95 and 67.

The Brewers is 81 and 81. So that's just going to be funny because it's a little David and Goliath. Like if Milwaukee can get an early lead, I mean, so much pressure falls on Washington. The AL just feels like a coin flip. Yeah. I am excited. We'll be talking about it. Also, I wanted to give a quick thank you to everyone.

This is like, you know, this shows in its infancy. We started halfway through the season, picked up steam. It's going really well. Like we said, we are excited to do as much as we can this offseason or this postseason. or this postseason. And I kind of said this on talking yanks, but our growth is 100% you guys. It's a grassroots thing.

Like we haven't put any money into marketing or spreading it as anything. It's people listen. They share it. Same with the YouTube videos. So many people comment underneath like MLB's videos and say, can't wait for John Boy. And like that shit. That's why we've grown.

So it's 100% your guys is doing. We appreciate it. It's invaluable. We have a great listener base or whatever the hell. the word is for it. So if you have friends that are watching baseball that are turning into playoffs, send them our way, tell them we got them covered, entertaining, uh, talking all that stuff. All right. Think, think that's over. All right. Go yank. No, wrong show. Wow. Wow. How do I end this one? All right. Go the ball. More so like see you guys tomorrow. You're going to see us every day if you want to or not.

Grandma. Are you excited for the playoffs? Okay, we're recording. Say who you're rooting for. Yankees or twins? The Yankees, of course. The Yankees, of course. Grandma's rooting for the Yankees.

Do you care about the other teams? No. Okay, doesn't care about the other teams. Nailed it. All right, back to the outro. Wrap us up, Jake. Ten words. Grandma had it.

No, exciting times. We'll see you tomorrow, everyone. See you tomorrow. Thank you.