Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 1278: The Postseason Swing of Things

Episode Date: October 5, 2018

Ben Lindbergh and Jeff Sullivan review the saber-savvy ESPN broadcast of the NL wild card game, relive the highs, lows, and pivotal/memorable moments of both wild card games, defend the bullpen game from an analytical standpoint (and criticize it from an aesthetic standpoint), and ruminate about every division series matchup. For the first time in […]

Hello and welcome to episode 1278 of Effectively Wild, a baseball podcast from Fangraphs presented by our Patreon supporters. I am Ben Lindberg of The Ringer, joined by Jeff Sullivan of Fangraphs. Hello. I am Sam Miller of ESPN Opening. Jeff Sullivan, Dan Graf's podcast opener scenario. This is a bad joke, but leave it in. Okay, so we saw some wildcard games. We've got some Division Series starting. We should talk about all these things. This will just be a playoff episode as far as I know. So I wanted to talk a little bit about the broadcast of the NOL card game. I know you didn't get to see it because it wasn't available online, but it was really good. I thought we talked to Jason Panetti, of course, to preview it a little bit, and I thought it turned out really well.

I know it was very well received by our listeners, but I got the sense that it was well received by pretty much everyone. And I thought it was well received by pretty much everyone. And I thought it was really well done. It was Jason, Mike Petriello, Eduardo Perez, and it wasn't so much the stats that I liked about it. I mean, the stats were good, and I don't know if there were any stats that made me say wow, but there were definitely some stats that made me say huh. So that was good. But even more so than that, and even more so than the graphics, which were also cool. I liked seeing the directional range stuff for the outfielders and the stolen base probability and the ground ball spray angles and all of that. That was

interesting and good. And I thought it added something to it. But to me, it was more just like the absence of comments that make you shake your head. That was really the benefit of it, I think. It was just a bunch of people who really liked baseball in the booth without any of the baseball grump sort of stuff that we've talked about on the podcast, without any of the back in my day. play-by-play guy, Petriello with good color and stats and facts, and Perez with the good player perspective, but all sort of enthusiastic about baseball in a way that you'd think you would hear on every broadcast, but you don't. And I can't compare and contrast with the main ESPN broadcast of that game because I wasn't listening to it, but just the general broadcast I thought showed, I don't know, less excitement about baseball than the supposed stat head broadcast.

Yeah, through MLB TV, it did not, at least not to my knowledge, it did not present the option to listen to the stat cast broadcast, which made me feel like a bit of a hack, considering we had just interviewed Jason Benetti to talk about specifically that broadcast. And this is my line of work. But in any case, I can at least offer some thoughts on what I think happened. And I can say for one thing, I have no idea how well received something like this is because we are hopelessly entwined in our bubble of people who feel like we do. I have muted most people who don't feel like I do on Twitter, which is the only place where I'm exposed to the world. But it's a little like if you were, you're talking about a baseball team, you're talking about a roster

and a typical broadcast might have some superstar baseball players, but a typical broadcast might also have, let's call them, I don't know, like an Orioles Chris Davis, or maybe just like, I don't know, Pedro Alvarez, Danny Valencia, name Orioles players this

year many of them are bad and you had like i was going to make the same point that you did now i'm just making it a different way i guess but what you can you can focus on what an alternative broadcast like the uh like the sackhouse broadcast does and the things that it highlights but it really is just as much if not even more about the absence about just eliminating like the negative war players if you will right you get rid of the below replacement players and then you just lift them up it doesn't even matter if you replace them with something great it's just if you replace them with something that doesn't suck then the broadcast is better and i like i know they they have done this with like a with stack they've StatCast broadcast before with different booths.

But when you have Jason Benetti, who announces games in a very pleasurable way, he's very good at it. He's very experienced. Eduardo Perez, of course, also very experienced. Mike Petriello, the least experienced, but has a podcast and functions very well as a color guy, I'm given to understand. It just – you would – it makes it i can't think of the word but having jason benetti there to sort of lead it it just opens the door to so many people because you're not struck abruptly by how different the broadcast is you're just like oh this is just a regular baseball broadcast with a guy who sounds like he should be broadcasting

baseball and this is smarter. So that much I like, and the other point I was going to raise, I have forgotten what it was as I've been talking, and so we will see if it reoccurs to me before the topic changes. Yeah. Well, the first time anyone tried to broadcast like this, which was, I think, Fox a few years ago with Rob Neier and others. And, you know, it was the first time, so obviously there were going to be growing pains and baby steps. And it was like a studio sort of setup where they showed the people all the time, and then the game was like on a screen in the studio,

or it was like split screen or something. It was definitely not your typical broadcast. It was like a bunch of stat people sit around and watch a game, and you watch the stat people watch the game more so than what this was. And, you know, it was the first time they tried it, so it wasn't going to be perfect implementation right away. But I think this was far better in that you could have turned this on and not realize that it was any sort of alternative broadcast.

It just looked like a game with some more graphics and stats. And, you know, there are little things you could quibble with about how they displayed certain things. Like I think putting war on the screen when batters came up was ultimately kind of confusing because war considers everything, base running defense. And so there were a lot of times where someone was a decent hitter but just you know it was like kyle schwarber would come up or something and you know the war wouldn't be what you expect because his defense isn't that great or his base running or something and really all you want to see is a guy's hitting stats at that point but these are little quipples and really i mean i don't know that they ever ran out of material, but I think as the game stretched on and on and on and on, there were fewer sort of prepared talking points.

And so I think they all just kind of loosened up and just talked about baseball with fewer like, you know, oh, we got to get this stat in because we prepared to get this stat in when this guy came up sort of situations. And I thought it was great and as you were saying just like not getting you know someone making too much of uh two for four history against a certain pitcher or something like those are the things that bother you on a broadcast where people just say misleading things or counterfactual things and there was just an absence of that on this broadcast that was very refreshing and i think contrary to the idea that stat heads don't love the game or they sap all the joy out of the game or something, I think for most of us, the reason why we dig into these numbers and look at all of this information is because we really love baseball and just love the sport and started out watching it like anyone else watches it. And I think that enthusiasm came through here. It wasn't like the stats were bogging down the broadcast or taking the fun out of it. It was

just like a manifestation of the enthusiasm that these people have for the game. Yeah. I like having war as part of the broadcast. Again, I didn't get to see it, but I would think here's the way that I would do it is when you were introducing the starting lineups for each team, then I would show their names and their pictures and their war. And when they when they come up to the plate then you just show offensive statistics and i think that's the balance that you would want to do because you're right war doesn't really make sense when someone comes up to the plate if like jd martinez comes up then you're like oh his war actually wasn't as high as i thought well he's still one of the like five best hitters in the world so you should you should show that now as

i i remember what the another point was it would be interesting to see a stat cast so we've had now a stack as broadcast now imagine if you can a stat cast season like one team decides we're going to do this for 162 games and that's where it gets really challenging of course because where i think now some of the some of the dumb useless or even worse than useless things that come up on a regular broadcast are said because the person saying them actually believes them and just has stupid bad opinions about baseball but it's also they function as time fillers and I think this is something that Mike Petrielli was already spoken to just how difficult it is to fill

three or in this case five hours of time with talking about baseball and then to do it day after day after i don't know if i don't know if you know this but the baseball season has 162 games and then there's another month of baseball after that to say nothing of the month and a half of baseball before it there is so much time that you have to fill that for a so-called smart broadcast it becomes so extra difficult to fill that time with words. When you are watching on TV, you want some sort of noise. You can't just have silence. The broadcast has to be filling the time mostly,

unless the crowd is going insane. But the temptation to just talk for the sake of talking is a lot higher than you might assume. And I know that because we do this podcast and sometimes I need to talk and I don't know what to say. And I just kind of tread water until I feel like I've been making noise for 30 seconds and I can pass it back to you because you're always more prepared. So that is the real challenge. And it would be interesting to see how often, I mean, you and I haven't like followed a team every single day for a long time but you know you just start to hear the same stories over and over and now you just imagine that the people who've been doing this for 40 years who have just been

telling the same stories over and over and over and over and over and it's almost impossible to not repeat yourself but anyway that would be the real challenge it seems like they did a good job in this one game and if i can shift it to something vaguely related i just wanted to talk about those matchup stats you mentioned like two two for four you hear this every broadcast right it always comes up it seems like something that should matter and uh the analysts you and i and so many other people have talked about how it doesn't matter now i like having those numbers presented in broadcasts not because of their predictive skill it means nothing for all the reasons everybody already knows but i think psychologically those numbers i think are presented for the fans and if you're a fan of like the i don't know the

rangers and you hear that this guy like chris davis for example the good chris davis this is annoying one of them just needs to go away so that we can just talk about the one. I think one of them is probably going away. I wish there was a different way to pronounce it. Tris and Chris, whatever. Chris Davis versus the good Chris Davis versus the Rangers. Lots of home runs. It hits the crap out of the Rangers. It doesn't mean anything to me.

But I like having those numbers presented because as a fan, you're like, yeah, it does seem like he always kills us. Or if this guy is like 10 for 15 against this pitcher, then it's like, oh, yeah, I have seen this happen a lot. Like it is part of the story, even if it's not predictive. So I like having those numbers. I just don't want anyone to say them and then say, and for that reason, I think this is how this is going to go. Yeah, it's hard to present retrospective information

without sort of at least implicitly suggesting that it tells you something about those players and what they will do and I don't think you want to see just like a projection and no historical stats I mean that would be better in some ways because it tells you what's going to happen but I think we all want to know what has happened and then I guess we each draw our own conclusions from that so yeah I don't mind seeing that information want to know what has happened, and then I guess we each draw our own conclusions from that. So, yeah, I don't mind seeing that information just to know what has happened before. But if you make decisions based on that, then that's probably going to be a problem. So I think it was great, and good job, everyone who was involved.

And then as soon as they gave us a taste of the great broadcast they took it away and now we're stuck with with the regular broadcast so that's unfortunate but i i think it went well enough that hopefully it will be brought back maybe who knows maybe next year there will always be a an alternate stat cast broadcast or maybe it'll just be the primary one who knows but it was a good proof of concept so we should talk about the actual game itself, which I think was not quite what we expected. The Rockies, of course, won 2-1 in 13 interminable innings. It was a really fun game for the first, I don't know,

eight or nine innings, and then it kind of became a slog after a while, I thought, because it just went on so long and reminded us all that playoff baseball lasts forever. And that even when it lasts forever, it's usually exciting and suspenseful enough that we can keep watching. But when it goes 13 innings, that's a little long. So there just wasn't a whole lot of action and there were a lot of moments that I think speaking of flashing war when hitters come up I'm pretty sure that it flashed 8.2 war when Drew Butera came up one time which I'm gonna guess was a bug unless they're using some incredibly advanced version of war

that captures something about Drew Butera I don't know but there was a lot more Drew Butera and Tony Walters which turned out to be a good thing for the Rockies, and Terrence Gore batting in crucial situations in an elimination game than I had expected coming into this one. there and what chance does he have and i know everyone's i mean like the the arc that terence gore experienced in the game now granted yeah i would like to just so everyone knows terence gore came in he stole a base and then he scored that's great yeah so it works sort of terence gore stole a base off adam on avino and i didn't know this about adam on avino before i know this now adam on avino this year he only threw 77 in two-thirds innings he'll add 24 stolen bases three runners were caught. That is terrible.

You might remember a few years ago, Dillon Batantis, he led 21 stolen bases out of 21 attempts. That was worse in 73 innings. But Adam Bonavino this year led the fourth most stolen bases while throwing like the, what was it, the 180th most innings in baseball. And also, he didn't allow many base runners because he was a really good pitcher.

So Adam Bonavino... You're saying Anthony Riz was a really good pitcher. So Adam Adovino. You're saying Anthony Rizzo probably could have stolen second off Adam Adovino. He probably could have stolen second off Adam Adovino. And now it's going to be interesting to see if the Brewers try to run like crazy on Adovino. And I haven't checked other pitchers. Anyway, more to the point. Regardless of Adovino's tendency to allow people to turn singles into doubles and doubles into triples and triples into inside the barcom runs,

still, Gore stole the base, and then he scored on Baez's double. And I think, great, that will be the last that we see of Terrence Gore in this game. And it was not, because this is the playoffs, and things are stupid. And then he comes up. Now, okay, if we can just highlight that plate appearance that he had in the bottom of the, what was it, 13th, 12th? Yeah. 13th. It was the West inning, yeah.

I know a lot of people expressed disappointment he didn't lean into the pitch. Like the first pitch, I think it was, that basically brushed him and nearly nicked him. I don't know what it's like to be a hitter. Actually, that's full stop. I don't know what it's like to be a hitter. It was terrifying. I was in a bad high school league. But for people to suggest just lean into it, go ahead. Go lean into something

that's going really fast. You can't lean into a pitch with your arm or shoulder and not have your head close to your arm and shoulder because your head is right there. Like I'm looking at my shoulder right now, and it's inches away from where my face is. So it's hard to compel someone to lean into a pitch under any circumstances. But then I know Gore worked a full count, which, by the way, is ridiculous. You can't do that if you're a pitcher. And then he swung at ball four, or it would have been ball four, and he struck out. First of all, that was a perfect pitch. But this is Terrence Gore.

He has a minor league slugging percentage of 273 or something. When he's hitting in the major leagues, I have full confidence he is the worst non-pitcher hitter in major league baseball. That was, of course, that was going to happen. You can't be mad that he's swung a ball forward because he's a bad hitter. The Cubs know he's a bad hitter.

And also, it was like a perfect slider by, what, Scott Oberg. So just too bad for Terrence Gore. Can you be mad that he swung at all because he is so bad that he should have just known himself well enough to be like, you know what? It's 3-2. What are the odds that if I actually swing at this pitch, I'm going to do something good with it? the odds that if I actually swing at this pitch, I'm going to do something good with it. I should just take it because I always, I mean, he should be doubled over like Ricky Henderson to the max, just with the smallest strike zone, just to try to work his way on. Because once he gets on, he goes from being basically the worst possible person to have to when he gets on being the best possible person to have. So you really,

really just need to get on base. And I mean, I don't know what the percentages are, but I feel like if I were Terrence Gore, I mean, easier said than done. Cause like you don't want to strike out looking at a fastball down the middle or something that's embarrassing no matter who you are. But still, if you're Terrence Gore and you have, you know, like, what is his career OPS in AAA is 575, and you're in the majors now in a playoff game where you really need a base runner, I don't know. I feel like I probably just would have been taking all the way in that situation. I know.

I note that he had six plate appearances between 2014 and 15 combined in the regular season for the royals and he was actually hit in two of those six plate appearances so he does have some experience with this but yeah anyway if i were a cubs fan i would have just been screaming take take don't swing it's like when a pitcher is up there with a full count, you don't really want him to swing either. But I don't know. Hard to resist, I guess. I know.

I haven't run through the numbers to see what the right thing would have been to do there because, yeah, you want to protect, but you are Terrence Gore. But then even Terrence Gore is a professional baseball player who kind of knows how to hit. But I think it was Alex Rodriguez who said when that was happening, like when the count ran full that he said it was like 50 50 that the pitcher is going to throw a strike or not throw a strike and he was saying that terence gore should just take it and i looked at the numbers and at least according to baseball savant the league average zone rate pitches in the zone overall is like 49 and in full counts it's about 59 now i don't know

if scott oberg intended to throw a ball. You probably don't intend to throw a ball as the fourth ball to Terrence Gore leading off X ratings of a playoff game, but it was just a perfect pitch. I don't know Terrence Gore's contact skill. Maybe you just go up with the intent of I'm going to try to foul off anything that looks close and then, you know, take anything that's not. But at the end of the day,

I don't think that it's really hard for me to believe that the right idea is to take all the way in that situation. You have to defend to something. And Terrence Gore just isn't, he's not good, man. He's not a good hitter. This is like getting the whole Billy Hamilton experience, except in a playoff game. This is the good thing and the bad thing about Billy Hamilton, which I know no one has experienced that because he's on the Reds and no one watches that.

But this is why Travis Sotchak had that article about how Billy Hamilton should be put on a contender and not used as a starter because you don't want to end up where Terrence Gore went up. Yeah. Well, I love that Terrence Gore exists and resurfaces every year at this time. I wonder how, like, how does he even feel about the regular season? Like, does he, it must feel like such a, I mean, the odds that he's going to get called up. I mean, I know he was up in September, but it must just feel so pointless even to play like the five months before that in the minors, because you're not going to get called up and all you have to do is really just like keep your legs in shape like he seems like

he could just kind of take most of the season off and just show up in September basically because I don't know what even the point of it is but probably he enjoys playing baseball so that's nice anyway it was a game that was close in part because it was well pitched. And Kyle Freeland, our man Kyle Freeland, was fantastic. And he did his Kyle Freeland thing of just living on the edges and getting soft contact over and over and didn't seem to show any ill effects of pitching on short rest. seemed to show any ill effects of pitching on short rest. Lester was maybe not quite as good, but seemed to do a good job of exploiting what was quite a wide strike zone for that game. And, you know, it just went on and on and on. And I think that, you know, it's frustrating for Cubs fans because their offensive outage continued. We saw that all September.

We saw that in this game. And that is the thing you can point to for why they ended up losing the division and then losing this game. And I don't know whether it had anything to do with the fact that they were banged up and they didn't have a lot of off days. They had that stretch of just playing every day

for a really long time. Of course, the Rockies had also traveled a whole lot in the couple days before this game too so probably neither of these teams was a hundred percent but I don't know it just comes down to one run and that's the season so that's how these things go yeah right I mean it obviously doesn't help the Cubs that like Chris Bryant just wasn't himself he had a shoulder injury that he sustained in the middle of the year and so we we talked before we answered a question about jilly davis's as the cubs hitting coach and how much fault he might have and as discussed in 2017 and then in 2018 the cubs had a 108 wrc plus both years like equally good but the trajectory of the second half was bad for the Cubs.

They had a team WRC Plus of, I think it was 89, which is not good. Down the stretch, Wilson Contreras was bad. Kyle Schwarber was bad. Jason Hayward resumed being bad. Ian Happ, he was bad. Albert Almora, he was bad. David Bodie, he was bad. Addison Russell was bad and then suspended. Victor Caratini, he was bad. Tom Locella wasn't great. The Cubs' good hitters in the second half were Anthony Rizzo, Javier Baez, Ben Zobrist, and Daniel Murphy. Chris Bryant was about average. But you look at this team, Bryant had a shoulder problem.

I think you can chalk up struggles to that pretty safely. Kyle Schwarber developed a back problem. Also, he's just not great, but he had a back problem that I think cost him. And Wilson Contreras, I don't know what happened, but the way that his season went, I have to assume that he had something happen to him somewhere in the middle. I don't remember anything off the top of my head, but maybe he wore down. Maybe he was injured by something. But you look at this, the fact that he was so team wide for the most part accepting rizzo bias and zoe brist and then murphy i think it's tempting

to say oh that got rid of the heading coach but really this just looks like it's a season where injuries took the wind out of this lineup i mean if you knock down chris bryant then your team is going to be worse full stop so i know theo epstein gave a pretty candid presser on wednesday i guess when he was taking accountability for what happened to the cubs season and maybe they just didn't want it enough and i can't speak to that stuff whether the cubs took anything for granted but it just seems like it's a season that injuries spoiled on the the hitting side on the pitching side too seems like a cop-out because it's when you talk about the Cubs injuries maybe it takes credit away from the Rockies and I don't want to get into that the Rockies did well Cubs were hurt and did worst whatever I don't care it's one one game but yeah

I think the the Cubs don't have reason to feel like they're in a desperate situation they should be better than this next year and again they won they won 95 games. But that was a weird second half. You wouldn't have thought that this team would 400 plate appearances, worst hitter in baseball with a 47 WRC plus over that span. That's worse than Jeff Mathis. And he was the guy who got that hit on an 0-2 pitch. Like you would not expect Tony Walters to do anything on an 0-2 pitch. And he just happened to ground a ball that got through the infield and that's that so how many of the worst Gore Walters and Drew Butera were in this game how many of the worst hitters in baseball were in the wild card game I know and getting

lots of plate appearances too I mean they're in there for other reasons obviously defensive base running but man yeah you did not expect to see guys like that taking those plate appearances but pat the laika too wrc plus of nine this year teams were pretty much out of position players i guess you could critique the fact that they needed to give those guys plate appearances there were different decisions that they could have made along the way but anyway it was weird and that's it for the cubs and now the rockies get to actually play a postseason series which is fun for them because there's been a lot of losing in wild card games so talking about the fact that walters showed up and butera was in there and gore was in their classic case of

national league baseball right yeah right you play the strategies and gore was in he replaced rizzo etc now it's more you could say is it is it more interesting to have teams take the risk of ending up in these situations or is it more interesting to have the best players who are in there and the whole game and i don't this this is basically the question right this required managing from bud black and from joedon, and managing was done with consequences. And certainly the Rockies can't be that upset because they won. But is it better? What do you think? What tweets and comments during the game like, oh, Ben Lindbergh's going to be sharpening up his DH is better and NL baseball is bad take because of how that game was playing out. I don't know. I guess I'd rather see someone better hitting than seeing Terrence Gore hit with the season on the line or Juby Terra hit with the season on the line but the strategy I mean there there's something to be said for the strategy and there's something

to be said for just the weirdness of Tony Walters of all people getting the crucial hit so I don't know I guess I think the best response to my initial we should just have the DH everywhere argument was that it's good to have variety and that whatever brand of baseball you like better, you can get that. You can watch AL baseball if you like AL baseball. You can watch NL baseball if you like NL baseball. And why don't we just live and let live? And I found that somewhat persuasive. I don't want to dictate how anyone enjoys baseball, but personally, I'd probably rather just see more competitive plate appearances and feel like any pitch could actually be a hit. But then you do get that payoff where the guy you don't expect to get the hit, the Tony Walters of the world, gets the big hit. And it's maybe even more exciting because of that okay that's so i think what we have arrived at because i'll just take your answer is that it's good to have them both to have both leagues and just keep it yeah okay so basically yeah don't change anything would be where we have arrived here yeah i mean i'd still rather see hitters hit than pitchers hit but but i i understand

the other perspective yeah i know i don't it's like it's probably 55 45 for me at this one i don't even know which side is 55 which side's 45 because it is objectively hilarious that the cubs wound up with terence gore leading off the bottom of the 13th when they needed to run like that's and it was technically it was all joe madden's fault you know he's the manager and he decided well this is what i'm going to do but then how many people are tuning in because they want to watch what the manager does? And I actually don't have a good answer to that. Because in the American League, the manager still makes decisions.

He makes less frequent decisions, unless you're Bob Melvin, then you're making a decision after every single batter in the AL wildcard game. But, I mean, to have Walters, Viterra, Gore, and the seasons on the line, I guess it's neat in that it does test the depth a little more. And so it's maybe more, it lets you get a better idea of how the whole team functions together instead of just the starting lineup. So I guess it's not that either one is better, but it is different. It just tells you, it shows you something different about each baseball team right and in

theory the cubs have the depth and the flexibility not to be hitting turn score in that situation but they ended up hitting turn score but yeah if you're a team like the dodgers or something then you have the depth that maybe distinguishes you from your opponent and maybe you can take advantage of that so i just saw this uh i guess it's supposed to be a fun fact this is hockey related but someone posted it in the facebook group this was tweeted by the official nhl public relations twitter account here we go the capitals established a new nhl record for the fastest two goals by a defending Hold on. Fastest two goals by a defending champion in the season opener or the home opener season opener okay so there have been like only 110 games or something basically total in this

sample right and why does that even matter the fastest two goals like by a defending I mean that's I guess two out of ten yeah if if that that would be like the fastest run scored by a world series winner in opening day or something like oh boy all right that's a weird one so AOL card game I was in attendance yeah it was uh semi-exciting it was exciting for a while. The crowd was definitely into it. And it was, I think, I don't know, seen as sort of a referendum on the opener or the bullpen game. Maybe it's perceived that way. I think it's probably unfair to look at it that way. I mean, ultimately, you know, it kind of looks like that because it's like here are the A's throwing out their Liam Hendricks of the world and going with this bullpen game that no one's ever really tried in a playoff game before and then on the other side you just have the

Yankees with their ace who was good and then just hitting dingers and Aaron Judge hit a homer and Stanton hit a homer and the amazing Luke Voigt came within a few inches of hitting a homer so it kind of looked like you know here are the A's trying this fancy moneyball tactic and here are the Yankees just kind of old school baseball just you know an ace who throws 100 and the hardest hitting hitters in baseball just hitting hard hits and they won and I mean I think that the Yankees are really good and there's a lot to be said for Yankee style baseball and I'm sure that if the A's had Luis Severino they would have started Luis Severino it's one game I think the bullpen game was the

A's best option because really otherwise it was what Edwin Jackson. I mean, Mike Fiers has not been great lately. Sean Mania's hurt. Trevor Cahill also has not been great lately and had a back issue. So I don't know if he's at full strength. I mean, there just wasn't an attractive option. And I think Matt Chapman said before the game, it was like the cliche about how you want to win or lose with your best guys on the mound or whatever. And in the A's case, the bullpen, that was their best guys. Now, Liam Hendricks specifically was not their best guy. So you could critique, I suppose, Liam Hendricks being the opener. I mean, the thing is, though, that people are calling this the opener. And technically, I guess he was an opener, but there was no bulk guy. This was not the opener where a reliever pitches and then a starter comes in in relief. This was just a bullpen game. So you knew that you were going to have to have, what, like seven relievers pitch at some point.

And presumably Hendricks is one of your best seven guys. So you have to pitch him at some point. I guess that's the thinking. guys so you have to pitch him at some point i guess that's the thinking yeah and hendrix of all the pitchers that the a's were expected to use on wednesday night hendrix was the worst now i don't think hendrix is terrible but again he was designated for assignment in the middle of literally this season now he came back in september and he was he was actually throwing quite a bit harder which i didn't know until yesterday he came back and he's throwing in 95 96 but liam hendrix was going to be the vulnerability in this game. And well, what are you going to do? We got bested by Aaron Judge.

That happens to a lot of people. Aaron Judge is really good. And this game, I know it wound up 7-2. It wound up, the Yankees walked away with it. But this game was close. This game was dramatic for a while. And in the sixth inning, when the Yankees pulled away, just to remind people that sixth inning started off with an Aaron Judge, excuse me, swing opposite field grand ball double that actually bounced in foul territory first. So that's just bad luck. Aaron Hicks followed with a real double. But like Luke Voigt's dramatic triple was an out in most other ballparks because it was just a casual fly ball. And Blake Trina nearly, arguably, but nearly had Giancarlo Stanton struck out.

So it's like the A's didn't pitch poorly in the game, and they were facing a very, very good lineup. But this game, to me, it really came down to a couple of innings where the A's had a chance to do some stuff at the plate, and they just couldn't get anything going. And you can remember in the top of the fourth inning, the A loaded the bases and then severino struck out marcus semien on like a perfect 99 mile per hour fastball and then in the top of the fifth i don't know i'm not sure what aaron boone was doing leaving severino out for the top of the fifth i think we all thought he was done after

the fourth he had thrown 80 some pitches and he left the field just with this roar after he struck out the 7th. I'm like, that's my last pitch, and it was great. Zerino comes out, and he allows back-to-back singles in the top of the fifth, which was bad. Here comes Matt Chapman, Jed Larry, Chris Davis. The A's had 2-1 and nobody out in what was then a two-run game. Credit to Dillon Batances, who you remember at this point last year,

the Yankees, Joe Girardi didn't want to use him in any kind of meaningful spot. He just didn't trust Dylan Batances. And I thought, a lot of people thought that Batances had become like the most obvious trade candidate in baseball because he had just fallen out of favor with his manager. And so the Yankees just got rid of the manager instead and kept Dylan Batances, who's been amazing this year. And Batances, to me, to me personally, Batances wound up being the story of the game. Now, maybe that's being overdramatic, but for him to get out of that jam at that point, he got Chapman, Lowry, Davis in order. And then in the sixth, he easily set down Olsen, Piscotty, and Laureano.

Batances saved that game for the Yankees until the lineup was able to do what it was going to do. The A's didn't really do a whole lot after they threatened in the fifth, and that was it. So credit to Batances for me. This was not a referendum on the opener or the bullpen game, whatever you want to call it. For one thing, the Brewers are about to bullpen game game one of the playoffs today, shortly after we record. And again, this is an old point, but remember remember last year the wildcard game the yankees basically did the bullpen game after severino was bad chad green david robertson tom mccainley and aroldis chadman threw eight and two-thirds innings of very very good baseball the yankees bullpended

because their starter sucked and so if wednesday was a referendum on the bullpen game so too was last year's al wildcard game so too will be this year's NLDS game between the Brewers and the Rockies. Brandon Woodruff is going to do whatever it is that he's going to do against the Rockies. And so the bullpen game isn't going anywhere. The A's made the right call, but they were worse than the Yankees, and the Yankees won. That's the way that it went. Yeah, and most of the runs that the Yankees scored came off Fernando Rodney and Blake Trinan. I think Trinan allowed more runs in this

game than he did in the second half of the season. So it happens. And you could say that maybe the A's got caught up in the idea that you need to condition someone to pitch the first inning. And so they prepared Liam Hendricks for this role. And so Liam Hendricks was out there after training as the opener for eight or so games down the stretch. And, you know, he's not one of your better pitchers. And so ideally they could have just gotten through this whole game with like Trinen for two and Rodney and Trevino and just like not used Hendricks at all. But I don't know if that is really feasible. and just like not used Hendricks at all, but I don't know if that is really feasible.

And I don't know that you can go into a game and ask someone to do that for the first time ever in a must-win game in Yankee Stadium. That was the reason that Joe Girardi cited last year for not doing the bullpen game was that no one had done it. No one had practiced that way. And the A's removed that objection by having Hendricks practice that.

And, you know, you're not going to have like Blake Trinan practice that eight games down the stretch when you're trying to clinch a playoff spot. So I don't know that there was a better option. I mean, it was kind of a weakness we knew of with the A's all season long that they just did not have a Luis Severino or equivalent. And I think they did the best they could with that constraint and it didn't work out in this specific game. And if you played it again tomorrow, it might work out perfectly. So I don't think that this will put a crimp in anyone's plans. And I mean, it goes back to, I think even before the first wildcard game was played in September of 2012, Dave Cameron was recommending that a team do this in a blog post, and then he was doing that again in three subsequent years, I think.

It was just a standard Dave post every late September, early October, and now Dave is working for a team, and teams are taking his suggestion several years later because the Rays finally broke the seal on that strategy. And now you can kind of do that. So it doesn't make sense for everyone. And I think that we will continue to see it, as you said, starting today with the Brewers, who are kind of an A's-like team in that their rotation is not great and their bullpen is. So we'll see more of this yeah i mean for anyone who wants to be critical of the a's and i get it after a game where you see a weird strategy it's easy to play in the strategy but like what are you going to mike fires edwin jackson right what are we doing like who are we really talking about here the a's didn't there was no question here what the

right strategy was as we've talked about so many times relief pitchers per inning relief pitchers are better than starting pitchers when you are in a one game playoff you don't care about fatigue or about the day before or about the day after you just want to minimize the amount of runs you're likely to allow bullpen game we're going to talk about it next year talk about it right now we're probably going to talk about it again in the next podcast and then later this month because the Brewers have a bad starting rotation. So they're going to be bullpenning. So unless, I don't know, the game one goes terribly, meaningfully wrong and they decide, well, that was a huge mistake. Bullpenning is dead forever, not just for us, but for the rest of baseball. I don't know what the Rockies are going to have to do to make that happen, but, you know, it could happen here in a few hours.

But, no, bullpen game, not going away. Going to see a lot of it because starting pitchers are dying. Not literally, but I guess we all are. Right. I guess we – I assume we will see more reliever innings pitched than starter innings pitched in this postseason. That seems likely. I think last year it was like 46.5%, I believe, reliever innings pitched in the postseason. And this regular season, we saw for the first time relievers pitch more than 40% of innings,

just barely. And I'm guessing that it will go up to over 50 in this postseason. So get used to it. And it will be interesting to see once we have a slightly larger sample of the postseason being run this way, whether that does become a predictive factor. Because it's always been so hard to figure out what works in the postseason and what predicts postseason success. And you can't even really use past data like earlier than, I don't know, 2015 or something now. Because postseason managing was totally different than it is today so we can't look back in history and say here's what worked before because it may not apply anymore so we we

need a larger sample i think of games working like this before we can say yeah having a good bullpen is that's how you win in october but it stands to reason that that would be the case right and i'll just uh i'll run a quick little query here just because this is what we do. So last year in the playoffs, starting pitchers, so 2017 in the playoffs, starting pitchers threw 53.9% of all pitches. So forget innings.

That's just 53.9% of all pitches. Now let's do some discovery. 2008, so basically a decade before starting pitchers in the playoffs through 62.1 percent of all pitches i don't know if that's as dramatic as maybe you were expecting but so 62 to 54 of all pitches that's a pretty big shift right yeah sure so in conclusion what we already knew relievers are throwing more and relievers are only going to throw even more. The Brewers are evidence of the Brewers are the team to watch

because they are going to lean on their bullpen very heavily. The Yankees are also likely to lean on their bullpen very heavily because they have like six or seven really good relief pitchers that didn't even use Jonathan Holder. I don't think Holder even was in the stadium for the wildcard game on Wednesday, but he's real good too. So you figure, what, a Red Sox bullpen, probably not going to be stretched out that much. The Astros bullpen is deep, but the rotation is like amazing. The Indians rotation is also amazing. So there are teams who are not likely to get to their bullpen and use it as heavily as

maybe you would expect, but the Brewers are almost certainly going to lead the way here because their bullpen is great and their rotation is not. So if you liked the A's and you are sad that they're gone, there's an equivalent that you can root for in the other league that kind of does the same thing. Yeah. Well, so let's talk about that series, which as you noted, starting today, Thursday, and the area where the Rockies have a big advantage, I think, is the rotation. But that advantage is somewhat compromised because Marquez pitched in game 163 and then Freeland pitched in the wildcard game. And frankly, it seems like Freeland could just pitch every day and do that, but they're not going to try that. So those guys will not pitch until, what, games three and four, right? And so that's a bit of a handicap.

I mean, that hurts. You have to go with Sensatella in game one and then who would – Anderson in game two. And so that, I think, removes some of the advantage that the Rockies would otherwise have. some of the advantage that the Rockies would otherwise have and they kind of need an advantage because I think the Brewers are just generally better at things than the Rockies are I think the Brewers are a better hitting team they are definitely a better bullpenning team and probably a better defensive team too it doesn't seem like they be, but they shift so much and do so much stuff with positioning. I think they are pretty good and the Rockies have outfield issues. So Brewers seem pretty well set up here. Yeah, I think the Brewers are the definite favorite. I think the Rockies are

presumably the weakest of the teams remaining. I guess you could argue about that because, you know, the Braves also kind of stand out. It's going to take me a while before i actually trust the brave's pitching staff but that's a different series looking at this one you can really feel the effect of the wildcard game because as you said freeland will not be available till later in the series marquez will not be available till later in the series and the rotation does drop off after those two this is not the strongest offensive team although we'll see david doll is hopefully the solution that they have in the corner outfield since they were playing so, so much. You wouldn't believe how much Hiroto Parra this team was playing.

This team that was in first place for so long. But you look at the Brewers, they have a lot of position player depth. They have a lot of bullpen depth. The great weakness with the Brewers, just as it is, just was with the A's, was the starting rotation. But again, in the playoffs, it's a silly season. The rotation is of less importance than ever. So many off days that are built in.

So now the Rockies, to their credit, they also have kind of a deep-ish bullpen. I know not all the names that you think are good are actually good. I think Brian Shaw is not even on the roster after they gave him a lot of money. And Jake McGee is not great, but Wade Davis is fine. Adam adam montevino is really good provided nobody's on base against him and scott oberg is a better season than anyone would notice this is kind of right in my wheelhouse love relievers who no one knows about and scott oberg is a fun one but yeah yeah i think every every advantage in this series short of the starting rotation i guess goes to the brewers and even in the rotation the rockies are kind of up against it because their best starters are only going to get one game a piece

if even that so brewers advantage and what that means i don't know 60 favoritism maybe 65 but it's it's slim but i don't know i'm i'm looking forward to it and i'm looking forward to see exactly how heavily the brewers bullpen gets taxed because again they are doing a bullpen start in game one so that's going to take a little bit of the wind out of their sails I was trying to think as I was watching that game who Scott Oberg reminded me of and I finally figured out it was the actor David Morse and I mentioned that in ringer slack and then after the game I saw on Twitter that former guest John Rogley also tweeted that he had been trying to think of who Scott Oberg looked like. And it was the actor David Morse.

And then I tweeted at him my Slack comment. And then we virtually hugged on Twitter like Baez and Arenado just because we had both made that connection. Is it the sad eyes? I think so. There's a resemblance there. We didn't even talk about the hug. The hug seemed like a big deal at the time. I don't know whether the hug will continue to be.

Let's do the hug. That was, first of all, credit to Baez. Clever. So Baez, we didn't need to set the scene, did we? This is base running ability, right? We had not considered his hugging being part of that, but it was. Right. Everyone, look, if you're not

familiar with the hug don't bother getting caught up it's it's done or you'll just see it on highlight reels later clever play iver bias you know what first and second grand ball the third was the was the case so bias was going into third but then he held up required a tag because nolan arenado was too far away from the base to go and touch it and throw to first. So it was a smart play by Baez to pause. And then by the time that he initiated the hug, I don't know. I don't believe that Baez was conniving here. I don't think that he knew that he was doing something strategic. I think we've seen Adrian Beltre do something similar to this before,

where he's running to third and he knows he's dead meat, so he just kind of pauses and lets things happen thought it was a good moment and i do not think that there was any sort of interference or obstruction or whatever because there was not going to be a double play on that play it was just a nice sweet moment between players who were supposed to be i guess giving their all in opposition to one another but still beautiful hug that is this is there should be more hugs in baseball in the rangers and mariners season finale or whatever it was adrian beltray granted out and then diverted his path back and went to the mariners dugout and hugged felix hernandez at the rail more hugs just

everyone everyone should hug there's nothing wrong with it there was not going to be a double play no one needs to be upset had the rockies lost i'm sure people would have been furious had the rockies lost in that inning i'm sure people would have been furious because they would say oh leonardo was going to turn to double play there's no leonardo you got to trust him he's gonna he's gonna make outs happen there was not going to be another out in that play so he stopped he tagged off your buys and gave him a hug at least actually he just hugged him i don't think he even tagged him i'm not sure but the hug is a tag there's a lot of contact and a hug i don't know if you've ever hugged anyone before occasionally yeah so now everyone gets to see the brewers and the rockies and that's nice because

probably not the best nationally known teams but really good and fun teams that should be known so that's a fun series and the other one braves dodgers i don't know what should we say about braves dodgers the dodgers are better this is one thing you could say but the Braves are good too because they too are a division winner and playoff team that's sort of how this works and I don't know I guess the the kind of mildly interesting thing was that Clayton Kershaw is starting game two instead of game one Ryu is starting game one that lines up Kershaw for a regular rest start and also I guess the game five start I don't know if that's uh anything that notable really but it seems like the Dodgers have

advantages probably in the bullpen probably well, well, probably just about everywhere, I guess. But it's not so lopsided that this isn't a series. Right. And now maybe if you believe that Kenley Jansen is particularly vulnerable, and he is worse, he's worse than he's ever been, at least as a pitcher, then you could say, well, the bullpen difference here is not great. Because maybe the best pitcher in the Dodgers bullpen right now might well be Kenta Maeda. I don't know that for a fact, but's he's good he'll be the bridge they have interesting pitchers back there but I know the Dodgers are not wild about their their bullpen right now and Jansen has caused some people some concern but for all the talk about the Dodgers

bullpen Braves fans have complained about theirs at least as much and like this is i am happy about the turnaround by anibal sanchez but it's still hard to trust you know going into the going into the playoffs the braves have a number of starters who have overachieved their peripherals so to speak and and we haven't mentioned it but dansby swanson does not have the greatest season but he is also not available he has a wrist ligament tear that honestly where he is i'm not sure that he would

even come back for anywhere in the playoffs certainly not at 100 so the braves are without a a good defender and someone who i believe is a better hitter than charlie culberson despite the fact that charlie culberson this year was actually like 12 better than average i genuinely don't know how or why that happened but it did so charlie culverson is is in there and he had a good season but you know what a few years ago drew butera an ops of like 801 so things happen to baseball they don't have to make sense i would think that there are going to be some fun ronald lacuna moments in this series i think he's gonna hit i'm gonna call it two two big dingers no more no less to exactly two big dingers from Ronald Lacuna.

But the Dodgers have the better lineup. They have the better bench. They have the better starting rotation. They have at least as good a bullpen. I don't really know about the defense since the Braves are without Swanson, but they do have Ender and Ciarte. Dodgers don't have one of those, but it feels like the Dodgers are likely to win. There's this weird, I don't know how to explain it because I don't care about the Dodgers,

but there's this part of my brain that just thinks at some point the Dodgers deserve a World Series. It would just kind of be a relief to me if they won one, but I'm never really rooting for them. I just hope that it will eventually be something that has happened, if I can explain that. But in the meantime you know it would be it would be more fun to see the braves advance just because they're new and like we've seen the dodgers and if you look at the american league like we've seen this all before this is why the a's were so exciting because like oh yeah it's it's these four again it's going to be these four for a while i don't mean to spoil any secrets but yeah the national

league you you root for something fresh but like i don't know there's i just kind of want clayton kershaw to get his so right maybe we're not supposed to own up to who our bandwagons are i have one i okay hopefully people can trust that we're not going to let bias cloud our judgment here now that the a's are out my i'm all on the brewers bandwagon just because they seem fresh and fun but beyond them well i'm not going to rank teams. I'm not going to do that because that's going to make people mad, but do you have a bandwagon? Yeah, well, I'm probably with you just, I think, again, because of how the Brewers got here. I think it would be nice if a team won without having to do the Astros or Cubs thing, or you could even lump the Braves in there I mean there are a bunch of teams in these playoffs

who got really bad and then got good again and the Brewers did not they never really got bad they just built a team they completely turned over I mean the A's turned over their roster there was like no one from the 2014 playoff team on this team, except I guess Jed Lowry, and he had gone to the Astros and back in the interim. So that was like a completely different team. And, you know, I guess the Brewers just bought, they spent, they went out, they got Kane, they got Jelic this winter when a lot of teams weren't doing that. And they managed to just make all these adept moves that built them up again without having to go through a long period of being completely terrible. And it would be nice in the way that whenever a team wins, other teams look at them and think, oh, can we do what they did? Can we borrow something from their blueprint?

And it'd be nice if the Brewers' blueprint was the one that became the new model. Now, I don't know if that's possible because it's hard to do what the Brewers did. I still don't totally know how they did that. They just made a bunch of moves that worked out really, really well. So credit to them, but it's not as easily replicable a strategy as get completely awful for a while and get high draft picks and don't spend any money and just stockpile prospects and then get good again a few years down the road that's kind of an easier plan to mimic even if it's an unpleasant plan too yeah right i don't know what the lessons would be if different teams won here if the brewers won it would show that you can win without tearing all the way down

to the studs that would be nice because no one wants those deep deep rebuilds they suck they're horrible to experience even if they work out. Of course, the Yankees did that too, but the Yankees are the Yankees. Yeah, right. If the Yankees or the Dodgers win, then the lesson is have more money and ability than everyone else and just lean on that. If the Rockies

win, the lesson is, I don't know. No one knows what happens. Hope that you develop some pitchers and then it's baseball. You can win a World Series. If the Braves win, that's kind of just the rebuild thing all over again. They tore down. They were bad. They built around pitching, I guess, kind of, except Acuna is their best player.

So I don't know what we're going to do here. Their pitching staff is not that great. So if the Red Sox win, then trade for the best players and then sign the best players and then you can win a World Series, I guess. So that's neat. If the Indians win, that gets more interesting. Plus, you have the 70-year World Series drought story. But, you know, the Indians don't feel fresh anymore because they've been good.

They've been the only good team in that division for a little while. And if the Astros win, stop it. You had yours. I guess it would be interesting to have a repeat since we don't see that very often anymore. But beyond that, it's like, yeah, we know. We know the Astros are really good. And I don't want to see a repeat, even though it would make for a somewhat compelling angle. But are they going to win the World Series and be like, nobody believed in us.

No one thought we could do it. thought you could – everyone thought you could do it. Yeah. One more thing I meant to mention about the opener. I thought the contrast just aesthetically was interesting because I think that the opener and the bullpen game, they make sense and there are reasons that teams do them. I was just reading in The Science of Hitting, Ted Williams's classic book about, well, hitting. And he writes in there about how the first plate appearance is the most important plate appearance of the game and of the career and of the season, because it's when you learn about the pitcher and you see his pitches and you can take that knowledge and take it into

your second and third plate appearances and do better. And he said, you know, the more pitches you see in that first plate appearance, the better you're going to do from then on. And that is completely the case. He was right. MGL's research about the times through the order penalty has shown that the more pitches you see in that first plate appearance, the greater the advantage in your second and third and so on. So that was years ago, decades ago that he wrote that. And that's why teams want to take away that advantage. It totally makes sense. But from a spectator perspective, I mean, we've talked about the impact on strikeouts and it's annoying to see all these pitching changes, even if some of them happen between innings. So that's true.

But I think also just like as a story of a game, just like turning a game into a narrative and familiarizing yourself with the main characters, like the pitcher, the starting pitcher, he's like the protagonist of the game sort of like historically speaking. He's like the guy who's getting the most screen time and everyone else is coming and going and you have this batting order and it's just predetermined and you can't put someone up there when you want him to be up there he's just up there when he has to be up there but the starter the starter is just the constant he's there and you can see him adjust as he goes through the game oh he's throwing a bunch of fastballs in the first inning but now he's mixing in some breaking balls or you know maybe he didn't have a good feel for this pitch early on but now he has a good feel for this pitch or maybe he's losing some velocity and he's getting crafty. Like, it's just a story that you can follow.

And you can see this guy getting fatigued and worn down. And it's just a fun thing to watch, I think. And we don't get that when you get the bullpen game because it's just a new face every inning or two who's going max effort and not having to make any adjustments as the game goes on at all and it makes me think like a good starting pitcher is like a superhero it's like a superpower to be able to go through lineups a few times and be effective and not get fatigued i mean there are so many guys who are great for an inning at a time but to be great for seven innings it's like it's just a higher

order of baseball being almost. It really makes you appreciate just how much harder it is to do that. But just from kind of following along, there's just no continuity when you have a new pitcher every inning. And I sort of don't like that as much. I totally understand why teams are doing what they're doing, and I would advise them to do it. But just from watching along at home, I kind of like having that anchor of the starting pitcher who's just there all the time. This is one of those elements where I think that there is a real potential. I don't know for a fact, and no one does, but I think there is a real potential impact on the entertainment factor of a game because the starting pitcher is the most important, or least historically has been the most important participant in in a baseball game now the only difference i guess between the starting pitcher and like being a classic protagonist is that oftentimes the starting pitcher is no longer around for the climax of the game sometimes the protagonist has already been i

don't know killed off is that too cruel of a thing to say removed he's no longer on screen but i do maybe maybe it's just something we're so used to it. Maybe it's just going to take a few years for us to redevelop how we write narratives about these things or whether we need narratives at all. It's just going to change our experience. And enough Raze fans have tweeted at me during the year that they find the games no less entertaining. They like being like the clever team that's out there trying to get as many outs as possible as quickly as possible but of course if more teams are doing it then it's not going to feel so so clever so it's fun it's fun to see games like wednesday where you have one team with a classic starter and one team doing a different strategy i can get behind that but yeah if it's

just going to be a different picture for both teams every inning or two something is going to be lost in the name of optimization and i am not convinced that is better for baseball, even if it is better for the teams doing it. So we haven't talked about the AL Division series, and maybe we can do that a bit more tomorrow too. But big picture, it's teams that we've been seeing a lot of, and it just kind of feels like the same cast of characters, but also really, really great matchups because these are excellent teams. And Red Sox-Yankees, it's kind of incredible that we haven't seen that in the playoffs since 2004. Those were classic series, and it was just to be in Yankee Stadium and to hear the We Want Boston chants was kind of tickling me last night just because it kind of gets you juiced up for that series.

I know that rivalries aren't really what they used to be. Players don't hate each other the way that they did in 1978, for instance. There's no real animosity for the most part. And also you play each other 19 times throughout the regular season, but it's still pretty exciting. It's going to be both, I think, very fun series. And I don't know that there necessarily is a favorite in the Red Sox Yankee series. It seems pretty close. I don't know how you could not pick the Astros in that series, but the Indians are also great, even though being in the AL Central makes them look better than they were. And officially, I got some numbers from Dan Hirsch after the last game of the regular season, and it turns out that based on their performance against extra division opponents, this year's AL Central was actually the second weakest division ever.

was actually the second weakest division ever, just edged out by the 2005 NL West, unfortunately. But it is a terrible division, and they were the kings in that division. And I don't know. Is there an edge in the Red Sox-Yankees series that you see? Like, I think I like the Yankees' home-run-reliant offense this time of year. I like the Yankees' bullpen. That is not a strength of the Red Sox. So in that sense, it seems like the Yankees are kind of a better playoff team, but

the Red Sox are just as good a team, if not a better team overall. I think the Yankees are a little better than the Red Sox as built for the playoffs. And I think that the Red Sox, they have a better team defense, but I think that even though the Yankees have a worse defense, they have so many strikeout pitchers that I'm not certain how much that's going to matter. Now, we did see Miguel Andujor make a mistake or two in the wildcard game. He is a liability defensively. Everyone knows that. We also saw him get pulled for defense and then Echevarria make an unbelievable—

Oh, my gosh. Spider-Man just—man, that grab that made aaron boone look smart because he had just made that switch but god the altitude that he got on that and just like the kickflip he did like after he caught it that was a very visually pleasing play you couldn't do that in practice but ever so often humans are capable of things that like if you were in a dire situation there are stories of like if a rock falls on a fellow hiker. There are stories of like a hiker moving a 500 pound boulder off of like a friend's body just to, because when

adrenaline takes over you can do things that you've never even considered. So I wonder how many players could have made that play in the middle of a playoff and now it was already like a six run game or whatever. Anyway, that's more to the point. I think the Astros Indian series is, well look, they're all interesting. This one's interesting because they're the teams with the best starting rotations,

and they're going head-to-head. This is not going to be a bullpen series. If any of the Indians consider the bullpen a little bit of a liability, even though Brad Hand is there to help it. Andrew Miller's back. The Astros should be less afraid of going to their bullpen because it's good, but the rotation is just so dominant. Plus, now they have Lance McCullersers in the bullpen which is crazy so that

that series feels very even to me and as for yankees red sox closing thoughts i guess i know look it's been i was in college early in college when they faced each other in 2004 that was a dramatic series i was up to like 2 30 in the morning for every game that was also obnoxious but it was fun to go to class and then the professors would be like, yeah, we were watching too. Class is dismissed. But professors all have accents. Yeah, we all sound like...

Could you believe David Ortiz? He did it again. Unbelievable. Where did you go to college again? Trinity College, middle of Hartford, Connecticut. Okay. It was right on the border between yankees and red sox country so everyone was very passionate about the series now it's kind of caught in the middle of being like go mariners so i think uh i know it's easy

as a fan of the other 28 teams it's really easy to just roll your eyes be like oh yankees red sox the media's favorite rivalry no one cares about this rivalry look you can hate the Yankees and you can hate the Red Sox. You can hate them equally. You can hate one a little bit more than the other. Two very hateable teams. Completely understand. But there is no, there is objectively no denying the fact that this is a great rivalry. And it's more fun to watch games where even if the players are acting the same because it's the playoffs,

like no one's trying harder. It's fun to have the environment behind the game the environment will be louder more boisterous because this is a rivalry rivalries are for fans more than they are for players uh i get it players are always very nice to one another when they're not throwing fastballs at their heads and necks but yeah the environment is such a big part of the playoff viewing experience and if for as much as these games are going to each take seven hours and 45 minutes the environment is going to be loud from the playoff viewing experience. And for as much as these games are going to each take seven hours and 45 minutes, the environment is going to be loud from the start to the finish.

And that's fun. And the only regret, I don't have regrets, I'm not in charge of this, but if I had a regret, it's that this isn't the ALCS. But maybe that's better because that means one of these teams isn't guaranteed to go to the World Series. But it's fun to have rivals match up in the playoffs. I don't care if you hate them both. Even if you hate them both, just root for for chaos but having the crowd really does add something yankee stadium is is getting

more more of an environment every year that it gets older and older just because it gets like smellier and worse i guess and so fans can take it over and like fenway park is a terrible ballpark that people are allowed in so it's going to be a fun it's going to be a fun series even though i'm not really rooting for either team. But that's freeing. And playoffs that doesn't pit rivals together is playoffs that's missing something. Fenway's great. That's Fenway slander.

I like Fenway. I don't care. Fenway's gross. It is dirty. But that's part of the appeal. All right. So next time we will presumably talk about NL Division Series games that we have seen. We can maybe talk some more about the ALDSs and maybe we'll get to some emails.

I don't know. It's always kind of obvious what we are going to talk about in the playoffs, which is sort of nice for us. So we will continue our playoff talk next time. Being around Fenway is enjoyable. Like the idea of fenway is enjoyable i like that it is just so ridiculous looking compared to all the other ballparks but like actually watching a game there is unpleasant and i say that as someone who's had very good road team watching experiences at fenway park the seats are all pointing in the wrong direction they're built for people who are like four foot eight and 95 pounds it's a stupid ballpark that's too old, but whatever. I'm glad it's there, just like I'm glad that pitchers hit in half the time.

Yeah, well, it is nice to have that sense of history and know that people played in the same place that you were watching. And I think it's been renovated so much that, I don't know, I think the sight lines are probably better than Wrigley. There are fewer poles in the way, it seems to me, anecdotally at least. Anyway, I don't know. We've just managed to anger everyone. So let's stop here. If Red Sox fans are responsible for a lot of our Patreon donations, then I rescind everything that I just said. Fenway Park is outstanding. You have a beautiful stadium in a beautiful city. Best

city in the world. Hub of America. Hub of baseball. Boston, massachusetts i've loved all of my time there all right that's better well as i wrap this up the brewers just walked off on colorado dodgers are up on the braves our predictions are looking good so far it's impossible to keep up with the playoff schedule in these early rounds when there are so many games going on by the time we post a podcast there's been more baseball but that was an exciting one i'm sure we'll talk about it at greater length tomorrow I was just struck by the penultimate pitch with Moustakas batting 0-2 count and there was a foul tip that Wolters almost held on to. It was like a basketball bouncing on the rim, bouncing, bouncing

It went off one side of his glove and into the pocket and out the other side of his glove and ultimately he just couldn't hang On to it and Moustakas just drilled the next ball into the outfield for a single and a walk-off. It's not a game of inches, it's a game of millimeters. I'm going to link to a couple posts that Jeff wrote about Adovino and about Dallin Batances. If you're listening to this on Friday, you should be able to find an article I wrote at The Ringer about Chris Sale, who really fascinates me. He is such an enigma right now. One other thing, one of our listeners, John Tower Ackerman, he made a t-shirt to commemorate the Chris Davis 247 feat. If you buy a shirt in the next week, you will be entered to win a Patreon subscription. And the proceeds of the sales go to a nonprofit that supports youth baseball in Oakland.

So thanks to John for making that. for making that. It's just a black T that has white text that says 247, 247, 247, 247 with ampersands between the 247s. You can find this at the247shirt.com. And I will link to that on the show page and in the Facebook group. You can support the podcast in other ways by going to Patreon, signing up to pledge some small monthly amount. That's at patreon.com slash effectivelywild. And the following five listeners have already done so. Chris Hilton, Nick Dyer, Jeremiah Dunham, Jeff Gilbert, and David Cohen. Thanks to all of you. You can join our Facebook group at facebook.com slash group slash effectivelywild.

And you can rate and review and subscribe to Effectively Wild on iTunes. Thanks to Dylan Higgins for his editing assistance. We will try to get to some emails tomorrow, so send us some. Podcast at Fangraphs.com. That's the place for your questions and comments. You can also send them through the Patreon messaging system if you are a supporter, and we will return to talk to you soon. beautiful bird. She spoke until one day she couldn't be heard. She spoke until one day she couldn't be heard. She just stopped singing. Ava's the morning, now she's gone. She's reborn like Sarah Vaughan in the sanctuary. She has found and burps around her sweet sound.