Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 1287: Contact High

Episode Date: October 26, 2018

Ben Lindbergh and Jeff Sullivan banter about a home-run robbery by 40-year-old Endy Chavez and some managerial news, then discuss the first two games of the World Series, focusing on the Red Sox strikeout narrative, the disappointment of Clayton Kershaw vs. Chris Sale and Sale’s playoff vulnerability, David Price‘s second consecutive strong postseason start, a […]

lean your face hopeless no embrace i want to know i want to know where the silence comes from where space originates You're not talking straight Come around, give in You're not talking straight Lay back, sink in You're not talking straight Hello and welcome to episode 1287 of Effectively Wild, a baseball podcast from Fangraphs presented by our Patreon supporters. I am Dan Lindberg of The Ringer, joined by Jeff Sullivan of Fangraphs presented by our Patreon supporters. I am Ben Lindberg of The Ringer, joined by Jeff Sullivan

of Fangraphs. Hello. Williams Estadio is not playing in the World Series this year because the Red Sox and the Dodgers are. But for any of you who are playing a Williams Estadio drinking game, by technicality, you must take a shot now because the podcast opened with Williams Estadio.

I don't know. You faked me out. There have been two games. I have actually relevant news about the Venezuelan Winter Leagues that do not involve Williams-Estadio this time. Did you see the highlight? If not, I will link it to you and to everyone else. But Andy Chavez robbed a home run in the Venezuelan Winter League, I guess, yesterday, sometime this week.

And Andy Chavez is 40 years old, and he is still trucking down there, and he is playing centerfield. And he went back, and he leaped, and he brought a ball back from over the wall, just like he did in the famous highlight from the Mets many, many years ago. I think that is kind of the coolest thing about winter leagues. Not just that Williams Estadillo is in one, but also that there are these guys who you think have been long gone from professional baseball for years and years. And nope, they're not. They're just going to the winter leagues every year, making that pilgrimage and migrating down there or, know always being down there but playing whenever the winter league starts and they can just do that for a while because if you have major league talent then you have winter league talent for quite some time after you no longer have major

league talent most likely so there's 40 year old endy still jumping over the fence and bringing balls back i am watching the highlight and there's a tweet here. You'd like me to do a tweet from DirecTVSportsVE, which I guess is Venezuela. Yeah, so official account of DirecTVSports Venezuela. We offer you the best information on national and international sports. I think that's probably not true, but maybe it is from a Venezuelan perspective. It's true in this case. Yeah, looking at this highlight, and andy either this is a a miniscule ballpark or andy chavez was playing very deep because you know usually this is a

for anyone who's not watching this as we talk which is everyone uh this is a clip of a home run a would-be home run hit the straightaway center and usually when you have a home run that uh takeaway hit the straightaway center then the center centerfielder has to sprint to get back to the fence. And it's this whole orchestrated series of maneuvers where you have to run a long route and then time your jump properly. And then you get over the fence and then you make the catch. Andy Chavez was just there almost already. And then he just had to jump straight up. But still, for like a 40-year-old man, that's very impressive.

jump straight up but still for like a 40 year old man that's very impressive the tweet from direct tv sports ve verified blue check mark ends with in spanish do not retire endy hashtag baseball in direct tv andy chavez you said he's 40 years old which uh which makes him three years older than new twins field manager roccolli. Yeah, that's right. Lots of managerial news. Was there not a time until fairly recently when all this stuff was supposed to be embargoed until after the World Series? It feels like that's really loosened up lately. Not that I care particularly,

but it seemed like there was a time when there would just be a barrage of news after the World Series and you were discouraged from distracting from the main event. Yeah, I don't, I mean, there's no, like, database of the specific dates of managerial hiring announcements, but I do think that, so what? We've seen the Angels, we've seen the Twins, we've seen the Reds. So that's the three, right? Has there been more?

I think that's three the rangers are still working so i think all of them have happened yeah yeah blue is still working i think they've all happened whether coincidentally or not on off days of the playoffs which makes some sort of like there were rumors spreading that the twins were going to hire ruckle baldelli on on on wednesday but i think the word is officially out now, or at least it's, I don't know, most definitively official now. But I think they've happened on off days, and I don't know, maybe that's what's permitted now. But also, I mean, is David Bell being hired by the Reds really going to pull attention away from the World Series? No, probably not. Maybe in Cincinnati, but yeah, I don't know.

Is there any trend we can identify from these three hirings? It seems like they're kind of different. I mean, Baldelli is younger and has been a coach or what, a field coordinator for the Rays, kind of one of those nebulous roles where you're just sharing information and optimizing processes and things like that. And then David Bell has been a AAA manager and a

AA manager within the Reds organization. And then Brad Osmus, we know, has been a Tigers manager with not the most sterling tactical reputation, at least, but then went on to be, I think, a special assistant with the Angels to Billy Epler, who I guess got along with him well because he wanted to work with him in an even more important capacity. So I don't know. I thought Osmus almost seemed like he would be in the Matheny, like teams wouldn't want to touch him for a while category, but I guess it didn't quite get to that point with him. Yeah, I was thinking about managers, but then I found something more interesting because now I'm just going all over the place.

But I want to go back to Andy Chavez and what you were talking about, the Winter Leagues and sort of the annual pilgrimage some people make. And we don't pay attention to the Winter League, certainly not statistically, because what the hell are we supposed to make of them, right? These are happening and under like completely different conditions and who because what the hell are we supposed to make of them, right? These are happening under completely different conditions, and who knows what the level of competition is really like. But Andy Chavez is one of the... He's in his 10th year now playing winter ball in Venezuela, and he's batted almost 1,300 times in Venezuela. So I'm going to read you some numbers here,

comparing Andy Chavez's career in AAA, where he's also spent nine seasons, and his career in Venezuela. So I'm going to read you some numbers here, comparing Andy Chavez's career in AAA, where he's also spent nine seasons, and his career in Venezuela. And I'm not even going to bother saying which is which. Batting averages are 309 and 314. On-base percentages are 364 and 363. Slugging percentages are 392 and 411, which is a somewhat meaningful difference, but not really, like minimal power in either one. Andy has stolen a bunch of bases in both of them. Based on the Andy Chavez example, the Venezuelan Winter League would appear to be comparable to the AAA level of Major League Baseball, which I don't know what you do with that, but at least it gives you some context when you see a guy who goes down to Winter Ball

and, I don't know, changes his swing or something, or learns a new pitch, and you see how he's done. The numbers aren't worth nothing. There is a lot. Well, there's a fair amount of major league talent that's present, maybe less so in Venezuela now on account of, you know, government, but elsewhere in winter leagues, there's some merit in these numbers when the samples get big enough. Anyway, we can talk about Brad Altsmus if you want to. Well, no, that's a good example. Like the JD Martinez after he reinvented himself, but before the Astros released him,

he played in the Venezuelan Winter League and played in 24 games, 106 plate appearances, and he hit 312, 387, 570 with six homers in 93 at-bats, and that was kind of the first inkling that he might be different. And, you know, no one really made anything of that at the time. Maybe people who saw him did, but just based on the stat line, you would say, whatever. He had a good 106 plate appearances. We know who JD Martinez is.

That's certainly what the Astros thought at the time. And he barely got a shot in that spring training but that was kind of the first indication so I don't know what the state of technology is down there whether there's pitch effects everywhere or trackman or portable rapsodos sort of stuff that teams are getting some access to to get some information on these guys i would guess that there's something like that down there so maybe that helps but it's it's hard just to go off the stat line but i'm sure there are times when a breakout is preceded by a bit of a breakout in the winter leagues so i guess so we can tie all of this together i will point out that uh last

season andy chavez played in the atlantic league with the somerset patriots that's a team that went 72 and 54 and it finished i don't know somewhere in the standings but one of andy chavez's teammates i mean there's a few teammates here who have been in the major leagues like julio borbon and aaron laffey but one of his teammates pitching out of the bullpen ryan webb ryan webb teammates with andy ch Atlantic League. I've been wondering where he was. Nice. Any saves? Ryan Webb, zero saves. The closer of the team was Ryan Kelly, who is bold, which means he's been in the majors. I have not any recollection of who that is.

Baseball references word for it. But, yeah, it's not a bad life. Like someone was telling me the other day that Mark Tien is still playing in Italy and that he has like Ruthian stats there, which I did not try to confirm. I'm sure the stats are online somewhere, but Mark Tien is 37 years old. He has not played in the majors since 2011, but presumably he just likes baseball a lot. I mean, he made $21 million in his major league career. He's probably set for life if he saved that and didn't spend it all on nothing. So maybe he just figures, whatever, I'll just play in professional leagues until I can't do that anymore. And why not? Seems like a good life if you like baseball. I have something for that. I was just looking at mark t and this morning why because mark t hand is 19 days older than new

twins manager rocco baldelli uh-huh yeah well we should probably just talk about the world series that's probably what most of our audience wants to hear about right now i guess it's always weird to go and talk about game one after game two has already happened. But whatever. This is not a daily podcast. You get what you get. So I don't know. Let's talk about game one first and then game two at more length, I guess. Yeah.

So big picture. We've got the Red Sox up to nothing here after, well, I don't know, commanding a couple of performances, I guess you could say. It wasn't blowouts or anything. And games were pretty close up until late in game one and up until the end in game two, but there's a sense that the Red Sox are very much in control of the series right now, and obviously, statistically speaking, they are. They're up two games to none, and now the series is going back to LA. So the first game, yeah, the first game was the much-ballyhooed matchup between Clayton Kershaw and Chris Sale.

And that did not deliver at all. That was pretty much a dud as far as the starting pitcher matchup goes. Yeah, that was—it's a helpful, I guess, reminder of our shared mortality, inevitable mortality. And in that sense isn't that that's motivating right so maybe maybe the rest of the Dodgers and the Red Sox being reminded that they're all dying by the decline of

Kershaw and Sale will therefore make them do better now that apparently did not apply to the Dodgers bullpen in the same game but maybe that is what helped Eduardo Nunez get under a curveball that was low and inside. Anyway, that was for a matchup of arguably the greatest World Series pitching matchup of all time. It was very disappointing. Seau did not look like himself at any point.

Kershaw didn't look like himself, or I guess I should say they didn't look like the familiar versions of themselves. I wouldn't say either one was absolutely terrible. And of course, the familiar versions of themselves. I wouldn't say either one was absolutely terrible. And of course, in this game, this is so far away now, because I think it was literally the first batter of the game. But first batter for the Red Sox in the first game, Mookie Betts hit a foul pop-up that David Fries couldn't catch.

And then later in the at-bat, Mookie Betts singles, steals second base, scores on Andrew Benintendi's single that followed that. And so the Red Sox were off and running from that. I mean, there was another play where, what was it, when Yasiel Puig threw home, which allowed Henchur Benintendi to get to second base, and then he scored on JD Martinez's single. And when Mookie Betts stole second base, Benintendi, I think it was a hit-and-run play,

and then the throw, if it had been on target, would have gotten Betts out. So there's just this whole sequence of events that did Clayton Kershaw no favors but then at the end of the day he did have just three walks and five strikeouts and four innings he allowed five runs it was not all the first inning it was not all bad luck this is it's hard to tell you go back to the game and there's conversation about whether it was right to go to alex wood or pedro baez or maybe even kenley jansen when right before eduardo nunez hit his tie-breaking home run.

It feels like there was so much more that happened in Game 1 than in Game 2, which you might be able to glean from the fact that Game 1 was 40 minutes longer, even though both games were just eight and a half innings. But I don't know. I'm sensing now this Royals-esque undercurrent of conversation about how the Red Sox are doing this because they make contact. Can we talk about this? Okay, let's get this out of the way. Should we get? All right, let's go right there.

So first of all, first of all, first of all, let me say, I think there is some evidence to suggest that players who make contact more than players don't make so much contact if you have all things being equal if you have two equally productive hitters and one of them makes more contact than another there is some evidence to suggest that the contact hitter will be a little better against better pitching or against better striker pitching are we agreed emphasis on the the little little great okay in series, just in this series, this tiny sample, the Red Sox have struck out 20 times. The Dodgers have struck out 20 times. Almost identical numbers of plate appearances. So that's one thing. I want to yield the floor to you. I have fun facts in my back pocket. I'm going to go to you and then we'll see what we have left to talk about here. Well, yeah. I mean, listening to the broadcast, which you probably shouldn't do, but just listening to John Smoltz talk about the Red Sox hitters, it sounds like they're the most professional, disciplined group of hitters you've ever seen in your life. And the Dodgers are just a bunch of hackers who only care about launch ankles or something. That is what I've gleaned from listening to the commentary so far. Meanwhile, the Dodgers had the best offense in baseball this year.

Just going by weighted runs created plus, they were better than every other team. And that's even if you include their pitchers hitting. If you don't include their pitchers hitting, they were way better than any other team. They hit tons of homers. They led the National League in homers. They didn't strike out very much. They were like middle of the pack in strikeouts in the majors. They led the majors in walks.

They were the best in the majors in not swinging at pitches outside the strike zone. So this is not, I don't think, the team to use as your counterexample for contact is good. These are just not a bunch of aggressive guys who are going up there and swinging at everything. They're not looking their best currently, but this is not like an undisciplined team. It's just the opposite of that. The Red Sox this year finished with the third lowest strikeout rate in baseball which is very good good for them they had a good offense they did not strike out in the alcs in five games they beat the team that had the second

lowest strikeout rate in baseball that team the astros in the alds obliterated the team that had baseball's lowest strikeout rate the indians the indians couldn't do anything jose ramirez barely showed up francisco lindor hit a home run whatever and ramirez and lindor are similar to i guess mookie bets and that they just like during the regular season they kind of do everything that's is better as a as a hitter but the indians couldn't do anything against the astros now the astros have a very good pitching staff but and then if you look at the national league looking now at just non-pitchers the team with the lowest strike. Now, the Astros have a very good pitching staff, and then if you look at the National League, looking now at just non-pitchers, the team with the lowest strikeout rate in the National League was the Braves, who were eliminated in the first round

by the Dodgers, and they didn't really hit. So, it's so exhausting because I get it. You look at it, and like J.D. Martinez, for example, his big hit in Game 2 two I guess we're moving on to game two now he had a the two-run single that broke the tie and put the Red Sox ahead four to two in the bottom of the fifth and Martinez kind of got jammed and he fisted the pitch the other way and you look at that and you think well anything can happen when you put the ball in play now of course just earlier Yasiel Puig had hit basically the same kind of terrible

little blooper hit that put the Dodgers in the lead two to one. So first of all, both teams can put the ball in play. Matt Kemp gave the Dodgers their first run on a sack fly, which is one of those little things, I guess, that helps the team get ahead. Yeah, I get that it is tempting. You can see how things can happen when the ball is in play that can't happen when the ball isn't in play i get it but this is not new the research here is is ancient putting the ball in play overall is just such a it's maybe a little bit better than striking out on balance but like the difference is almost negligible especially like if you're if you're jd martinez he's a great hitter right now but he's you know he's at reduced mobility

because he turned his ankle 180 degrees in game one and i can't believe that he's still able to play unpleasant to watch but like he's he would be a double play threat that's the big thing about putting the ball in play or or well god it's even, this is such an old conversation to even be having. And I don't know how this year's going to play out because the Dodgers have the, like Justin Turner, he's a pretty good contact hitter. Maybe if the Dodgers come back and win the series, we'll be praising them for their contact hitting or something. But it's, I understand why narratives emerge, but they are all annoying.

But I understand why narratives emerge, but they are all annoying. And there have been a lot of hits that were just kind of dinky hits. Either they just managed to sneak through, they were perfectly positioned, or the Dodgers defense came up short in some way. There have been a lot of examples of that over these two games. So, I mean, I don't want to disparage what the Red Sox are doing because they're doing a great job of getting the runners in. I mean, they're now on the postseason, they've had 55 plate appearances with two outs and runners in scoring position, and they have a 13-20 OPS in those 55 plate appearances. That is incredible. It's going to serve you really well if you have a 13-20 OPS in almost any situation,

but particularly that situation. And you can look back and say that this is something they've excelled at all year, and that is true. If you look at OPS in the league with two outs and runners in scoring position, the Red Sox led the majors with a 133 split OPS in that spot. That means they were 33% better than the league as a whole in those situations. And of course, they were just better in most situations because they're a good hitting

team. But even relative to themselves, your old standby TOPS+, they were 14% better than they usually are in that limited two outs runners in scoring position situation. Then you can look at the Dodgers, who were kind of the opposite of that. Could just be a coincidence. I don't know. But the Dodgers had a 78 split OPS+, in those situations, which is kind of weird because they had a really good overall line and they had a extremely not nice 69 TOPS plus in those spots, which was tied for the major league worst with the Orioles. So on the whole, you could say this season, the Dodgers have done a bad job of getting runs in, in those specific situations, and the Red Sox have done a very good job of getting them in.

You could say that that's why the Red Sox won 108 games in the regular season and the Dodgers won 92, even though their underlying performance was very similar. We've talked about this, that the Red Sox outperformed their base runs record by nine wins. The Dodgers underperformed theirs by nine wins. A lot of that is situational hitting. So if you want to say that the Red Sox have some magical ability to do that, that's kind of where you lose me. I mean, it's possible that like you could adjust your approach in those situations. But I just we know that on the whole, it's good to hit homers and swing hard. And sometimes that means strikeouts. And that's okay, because it all kind of works out in the end. And so I don't know, it has been a characteristic of the Red Sox that they've been good at this and it's been a characteristic of the Dodgers that they haven't been as good at this and that is largely responsible for the difference in their regular season records I just I don't know whether it tells us anything about their true abilities or whether it tells us anything

larger about how you should hit or how you should build a lineup. Yep. I don't really have a whole lot to add. I mean, the Dodgers were historically unclutched by any measure this season. And historically, that means nothing first half to second half or one year to the other. It's just it's one of those things that has happened. A friend of mine always says that he doesn't really like hiking. He likes having hiked, which is kind of a similar principle. But the Dodgers did not hit super well in the clutch this year.

And now if you're a fan, that gets lodged in your memory. So every time they make a clutch out in the World Series, you're like, ugh, this team just can't hit in the clutch. Now granted, even fans of the most clutch teams in baseball will see one clutch out and be like, ugh, this team can't hit in the World Series, you're like, ugh, this team just can't hit in the clutch. Now, granted, even fans of the most clutch teams in baseball will see one clutch out and be like, ugh, this team can't hit in the clutch because we always expect our players to bat 1,000 whenever the pressure is on. But if the World Series ends up, Red Sox win it 4-0 or 4-1 or 4-2, whatever it ends up, you can tell the story that's already going to be written and whatever.

The story can be written and it's not it's not untrue but the idea that the red sox have something magical in their lineup and that the dodgers have something that's anti-magical it just doesn't really i guess i maybe it's just the fact that you and i come at this from like an analytically more rigorous perspective and because it's true if the dodgers lose and they don't get enough clutch hits and the red sox win and they do get clutch hits which they already have it is true that the story is or at least one of the stories would be that the red sox were just better quote unquote when it counted it all counts it's a world series but anyway it's just it's hard to me to read that story and not think that something special is being ascribed to the winning team as opposed to yeah well, this is what happened.

And then I don't know why I care, but it's there. I just always want arguments to be, I don't know, more rigorous and more based on what's true and underlying. Yeah. to it whether it's either like an old school versus new school thing where people pitch it as like this is the team that cares about situational hitting and they're not just going up there and swinging the same with two strikes as they always do they're getting the runner in and you know it's like this more pure admirable approach and either it's that or it's like this team is so clutch and they're just their character is better than this other team's character because they get hits in these certain situations. And either of those is sort of frustrating.

I mean, I understand why people want to ascribe something to it because it's kind of boring just to be like, well, this happened and doesn't mean anything. And it could easily not have happened. And next time it probably won't happen. It's just, that's not fun. So I get it. I mean, I don't know. It just seems more intellectually honest, I guess, not to pretend that it means more than it does.

And so a lot of times we just default to the position that like, well, that's baseball. Baseball is random and like that's part of why we like it. I mean, you could say that about the Red Sox because they've gotten all these big contributions from Eduardo Nunez and Brock Holt and Christian Vasquez. Like a lot of the biggest hits they've gotten in this postseason have been from their worst hitters and the worst hitters period in baseball.

So that's just one of those things where you look at it and you think baseball is going to baseball over the course of a month. Like weird stuff's going to happen and we can't predict it. And it's kind of frustrating, but it's also kind of endearing. And I think everyone understands that's like part of baseball's charm, that it defies the predictions in that way from time to time and we all just accept that the playoffs will be decided by that stuff sometimes so I don't mind that but yeah when it becomes like a philosophical battle like it was when the Royals kept winning I mean I love those Royals kept winning. I mean, I love those Royals teams. Like they were so much fun. I miss those Royals teams, 2014, 2015, all the comebacks, the contact, the base running, the defense, like those teams, you know, I still, I don't think they were probably as good as their

record indicated or the back-to-back pennants or the World Series, and people wanted to make them like the poster people for the right way to play baseball or something, and I just don't know that they were, but they were really fun and exciting and aggressive and great. So I don't want to be the wet blanket. I just don't want to pretend that the thing that got the Dodgers here and that we know is generally good is now not good because it's the playoffs and it hasn't worked lately. In 2016, the Red Sox had the third lowest

stricter rate of baseball. It was in a very good low stricter rate. Then they had an even better WRC plus than they had this season. They were a great contact hitting potent lineup. And in the first round, they got swept by the Indians and they batted 214. So, things things happen i don't know maybe it's the jd martinez effect or something that team had mookie betts that didn't have jd martinez but on the other hand that team did have david ortiz so what are you gonna do and maybe maybe it's all because hanley ramirez is gone yeah i don't know i don't know what it is but it it's obviously served the Red Sox well, and it's probably not predictive at all. And for all we know, they'll go 0 for the rest of the series with two outs and runners in scoring position. But it has positioned them very well.

Can I ask you something? Looking at the box scores here, so Game 1 of the World Series, both these games took place at Fenway Park. I don't know if anyone was watching closely, but they did. So Game 1 had an attendance of 38,454. Game two had an attendance of 38,644. That is 190 more people at the second game. How? How?

What? What is? What is? What does that mean? I don't know. I don't know if you can answer that, but if anyone out there can answer, like, how – well, okay, I'm just going to keep repeating the same question in a more incredulous tone of voice. But, like, why would game two have a greater attendance than game one, first of all? And second of all, how would that even work?

What is – what's – what? Do you think that's paid attendance or is it actual people in the ballpark? It's got to be paid, right? It usually is, right? Some teams didn't. Some teams changed their method of accounting for attendance this year. And that was part of why attendance was down league wide. It was like the Marlins and the Blue Jays or something changed the way that they count attendance.

And that had some impact. So maybe there's some difference. But I would assume it's paid, and, yeah, I don't know why there would just be a couple hundred fewer Red Sox fans cramming into Fenway Park for a World Series game. It doesn't seem like they would have just stayed home. So I don't know. Where did they go? Measurement error i i don't know maybe where do they go measurement error i don't

know uh okay so as long as i guess so we talked briefly about clayton kershaw who was not great but who did pitch uh david price we can talk about i guess because he's sort of working to reverse his own narrative i guess as one narrative dies another one emerges but we we had talked before about how much david price would have to do for people to stop regarding him as some sort of postseason failure. And I don't know if he's there yet, but he's had two strong starts in a row. I know in this start he had won six innings, three hits, two runs, three walks, five strikeouts. But even the walks were like really, really close walks. Like I know at least one of them had two pitches that looked like they were strikes that were called balls and he just was not missing by very much at all he he didn't really do

the whole change up heavy thing that he did against the astros he just pitched well like david price usually pitches so i know a lot of people will focus on joe kelly nathan jovaldian craig kimbrell who came after that because the red sox retired what it, 16 Dodgers in a row to end the game or something. But David Price was good. Did you notice anything? Anything about David Price you'd like to discuss? Not particularly. I mean, I was relieved, I guess, that he didn't have another October blow up in Boston. He looked really good. I don't, I mean, he, he is good. So it should be the less surprising outcome that he was good, but it's not. I mean, I was seeing people kind of almost apologetically bring up Chris Sale's postseason record to say like, why does Kershaw and Price, they get all this abuse

for their postseason performance. And meanwhile, Chris Sale now, I don't know if anyone's noticed, but he has a six ERA in the playoffs. And I mean, obviously, we're not making a big deal of that because he's pitched in six playhaw and Price struggles, not because I think Chris Sale is unclutch or incapable of pitching well, but just that this has been a pattern with him throughout his career of pitching worse in the second half, particularly in September, October, like he just seems to have a durability issue. It's kind of the one nitpick you can make about him because he is incredible in every way, but he doesn't seem to have the stamina to be as good down the stretch. And we've seen that this year, obviously. And so I would believe that Chris Sale is a lesser postseason pitcher sooner than I would believe that Kershaw or Price are lesser postseason pitchers just because it fits in with the larger pattern of him not quite sustaining his peak performance over the course of a season. Yeah, I agree with that. I think we talked about that before you did the research and even looking at sales most recent start i know there was some consideration he was out of the hospital with whatever it was but here are chris sales top velocities by inning and he pitched into the fifth inning in his most recent start 96.2 95.8 95.5 93.1 91.9 so chris sale was just certainly between the the third and the fourth inning now I know that the

sample size of fastballs and whatever dropped over over the course of the outing but he was losing steam pretty quickly over the course of that game and now I know the Dodgers were making him work and he wound up throwing 91 pitches in four plus innings but yeah there's something there's something about Chris Sale that does seem to suggest that he he wears down now granted when you are a player who's been playing since the middle of february by the way the season takes forever when you go to the world series they barely get paid extra for this anyway you figure everyone is like running on fumes by this point i know there's like the the postseason velocity bump we see because adrenaline takes over,

but like you were just so gassed. But Chris Sale really does seem to feel it more than the average player. Now we could take the easy path and describe that to the fact that he is like 6'40", and he weighs about 17 pounds, but maybe it's something beyond that. We know that he was on the DL with a the shoulder problem but he definitely does seem to to wear down such that is the red socks ace now

david price in the world series as has the narrative gotten to that point i think maybe nathan evaldi is challenging for the title of red socks ace but we can get to that in a second i just wanted to i, one more thing about Kershaw. I know he was not very good. And at this point in his career, he just is not as good, regardless of whether it's the postseason or not. I think you have to accept and expect some variability in his performance from start to start because he's not blowing people away. But it continues to be amazing how little support he gets from his teammates in every way, whether it was the defense, which you mentioned,

or the bullpen. I mean, the bullpen support is just, it's kind of incredible at this point. It was James Smith went back and tallied it up and he has now bequeathed 18 runners in his postseason career and 13 have scored the MLB average in both the postseason and the regular season is 30% so you would expect about five of his bequeathed runners to score and 13 have which obviously makes him look considerably worse than he's been and yes he's been worse anyway but that makes it even worse and we just don't get to say bequeathed in many other contexts so i wanted to take a couple opportunities to say it any other context i don't know if i've ever used the word bequeathed uh but yeah and and what's what's funny about that fun fact is i believe that the first four bequeathed

oh that is fun the first four bequeathed runners uh were all stranded in his postseason career so i think he's at now on a streak of 13 out of 14 over the past like six seasons so just absurdity on clayton kershaw's part you look at what happened in in game one and now there was an argument that maybe kershaw shouldn't have come back out in the bottom of the fifth. He had thrown, I think, just 69 or 70 pitches through four innings or something. But he was going back to the top of the Red Sox order, and it was Mookie Betts and Andrew Penantendi who were going to lead off. It's always one of those things that's easy to say in retrospect. But even I was doing a live chat during the game, and even then, before Kershaw came out,

people were asking, should the Dodgers send Kershaw back out for the third time through the order? Like when you have an order that begins, Betts, Benintendi, Pierce, Martinez, Bogarts, that is tough to navigate. And Kershaw came out and he walked Betts on nine pitches and then Benintendi hit a first pitch single. And then Kershaw was removed, replaced by Ryan Madsen, who apparently was not warm yet, promptly put that on display with a wild pitch and a four-pitch walk.

And then the inning came unraveled. Ryan Madsen did the same thing again in game two. But you look at that and you figure, well, when you leave two runners on with nobody out, and then the Red Sox 3-4-5 hitters are coming up, it's not all just bad luck there that they're going to score. But on the other hand, Ryan Madyan madsen really he's inherited five runners in this series they've all scored and his era is zero that's a fun fact that's been circulating on twitter but it's a hell of a fun fact and how we uh assign run responsibility these days all days all days this is from the beginning we've done this yeah it is kind of i mean it's sort of

surprising that ryan madsen right now is like the the first line of defense for the Dodgers. How did that happen? I mean, he was not a Dodger until recently, and I guess he was pretty effective with them in a very, very, very small sample other than his six and a half ERA for the Dodgers. other than his six and a half ERA for the Dodgers. He had pretty good peripherals, like a lot better than he had for the Nationals. But he's a guy who had a five and a half ERA on the season. And granted, he was not actually that bad, but he wasn't secretly dominant or anything. And suddenly he is the guy coming in at these high leverage situations. suddenly he is the guy coming in at these high leverage situations and I guess you know who's the alternative if you're not gonna bring in Kershaw or something in that spot if you're not gonna go to Kenley Jansen that early which you could then I don't know is it Kenta Maeda who was kind of more of that guy last year and he didn't look all that great when he pitched in game two either.

I mean, there isn't really a shutdown guy in that pen right now other than Jansen, and it seems like Evaldi has just become that for the Red Sox when he's not actually starting. What I liked from game one, there was a video. After Ryan Madsen came in, I think right when he came in or something, the Fox broadcast ran a little clip of Andrew Benintendi talking to who's the Red Sox first base coach, Tom Goodwin or something. Anyway, Andrew Benintendi was on first base because he just singled off Kershaw. Madsen came in and there was a video clip of Benintendi was mic'd up or probably more likely Tom Goodwin was mic'd up.

And Andrew Benintendi was telling Tom Goodwin like, oh, this guy, he's got a really great change up. I pinch hit against him against the Nationals earlier this year or something. It's like, yeah, that's true. That's cool. But also like everybody in baseball knows that Ryan Madsen has a really great, like that's his entire career is his change up. It's one of like the best relief pitcher change ups that's ever been thrown, at least in the modern era. So nothing wrong with Andrew Benintendi, but it's just one of those cases of like, oh yeah, look what young people think they know when they know something. It's like, I learned this awesome fact about Ryan Madsen. It's like, yeah, we're a baseball team. We figured that one out years ago. Yeah, right. Yeah. And isn't it, I don't know if you've noticed or whether this has stood out to you, but it seemed to me like there are a lot more ads in the middle of innings. I already wrote that up.

That was my next bullet point. Yeah. It's like all of a sudden we're in the middle of it, you get a between innings break and you expect an ad. And now there is like Joe Buck will say something to kind of tee up the ad and then there will be like a split screen. And it'll either be something with YouTube TV or Duracell where it's just a very brief ad. But it's sort of jarring to me. And I thought this was new. And I actually emailed someone at Fox to say, like, is this a new thing? Have you done this before? And they said they're six second ads, or at least the Duracell ads are six seconds.

And quote, it's something we sell to help balance enhancing the viewer experience while also taking care of our advertisers. We debuted the six-second ad during last year's World Series and have used them over the last year to varying degrees. Stop. Hold on. Yeah, yeah. Enhance the viewer experience? The viewer experience, yes. I don't know whether that means like, well well if we weren't showing you ads now we'd be showing you even more ads at

other times and the games would be even longer I guess in that sense it's enhancing otherwise not really enhancing my viewer experience I am of two minds here because I can see the potential of these advertisements now I don't this doesn't enhance anything

there is a lot of downtime so maybe credit the fox or whoever for recognizing like actually if we fill up the screen and talk about batteries during a playoff game it turns out it doesn't matter because nothing is happening while david brace is taking several deep breaths on the mound so whatever it fills up downtime now on the other hand there's less time spent i don't know showing the atmospherics i hand, there's less time spent, I don't know, showing the atmospherics. I've noticed there's less time spent showing, like, the catcher. It's really, used to be you would see the catcher show as signs, like, most pitches. And now you've got batteries and YouTube TV advertised to people who are already watching on YouTube TV who don't need to be reminded of it. Now, granted, I never knew what YouTube TV was, but I've programmed myself to ignore all

advertisements. So you're not selling to me, you assholes. Although I guess they did put it in my brain. Shouldn't have said that word on the podcast. So when there's the potential here, I get it. The Fox is going to make money and they want to make money and they're enhancing their money making skills. That's what the marketing or PR person was really telling you. We are enhancing our ability to make more money. But now those advertisements, compare those advertisements, six-second advertisements to a 30-second advertisement during an inning break. People are conditioned to expect an advertisement during an inning break.

They'll get up. They'll use the bathroom. They'll get a beer. They'll just look at their phone. They'll do anything aside from watch TV. People are watching those advertisements even if they don't want to when they happen during the game because they're like, whoa, a commercial all of a sudden. I wasn't expecting that. And then they're like slapped in the face.

And then before they know it, the commercial is over and they're like, oh, I need some batteries. So people are watching those advertisements, which means you can charge more for those advertisements because there are – You can't skip them. Yeah. you can charge more for those advertisements because there are... Right, you can't skip them. Yeah, I don't know how companies can get viewership numbers as you go. That must be somehow... I don't know. Look, I don't know. But more people are watching those advertisements, meaning you can charge more.

Meaning, in theory, if companies were principled and cared at all about our experience, they could be like well here's the price for these commercials and now we're going to shrink the commercial breaks between innings by 30 seconds or something because the playoff commercial breaks are already considerably longer by what 50 seconds i think i think it's 40 i've seen when i've run the numbers yeah yeah there's a there's a difference in the national regular season between a national broadcast and a local broadcast, or at least there used to be. I think, based on the last numbers I saw, and these could be outdated, but during the

regular season, it's a two-minute, five-second break for a regular broadcast and two minutes, 25 seconds for a national broadcast. And in the playoffs, it's something like two minutes and 55 seconds. So anyway, there's at least a 30- second extra delay and even up to almost a minute depending on what you were comparing to you could shrink that the players don't need that time players don't need extra time to get on the field and throw their warm-up pitches in the playoffs you could shrink the the inning breaks by 30 seconds and then voila over the course of a playoff game there go nine minutes off of the runtime of the game which nine minute look it's something

if we're going to talk about intentional walks nine minutes count but of course very obviously if you are fox what you are saying is well we can get money for these advertisements and have all the other advertisements too so that's what you're going to do you're not going to not watch the game because of the ad you're not going to not watch the game because of the ad. You're not going to fast forward through the game or watch it on delay or something so that you can skip through a six second ad. It's like unskippable and unignorable. So it's the perfect scheme. I kind of admire it almost. And, you know, I mean, usually you're not missing anything important. I mean, we've got Pedro Baez pitching in this series.

We've got David Price. We've got Joe Kelly. We've got lots of slow pitchers in this series. So nothing is happening, but it's definitely not enhancing our experience. It is just added to the ads that we are already being fed. Right. I know they're unskippable. And I know also that

networks need to make money and they make their money from advertisements. I get the model, but people, when you have an ad that is unskippable and it's just thrown at someone, people don't respond well to not having a choice, not having the option to just go away or change the channel or something. And I guess you do have the option to just go away or change the channel or something. And I guess you do have the option to change the channel for six seconds. I don't know what you're accomplishing then. Some sort of principle-based behavior. But people, I can speak from my own personal experience and apply it to the entire world's population.

People don't like to be advertised to. People just don't. And so when you just start inserting every every single back every single green screen and by the way at fenway park that's nothing but green screens the whole stadium is a green screen i'm not sure it's even a real baseball stadium but there are electronic advertisements just inserted everywhere i know there are already advertisements that are like on the walls and fences of ballparks but you you'll see things like in the background behind the hitter when he's up at the plate on the little like backstop.

They just put these advertisements in that don't actually exist, but you can tell because they kind of like float around on the broadcast. There are ads everywhere. And I mean, it's easy enough to see the future of this because of course you look at all soccer uniforms or European hockey uniforms. There are just ads everywhere. Look at NASCAR. I get it. But that is hockey uniforms. There are just ads everywhere. Look at NASCAR.

I get it. But that is the future. There are going to be advertisements everywhere as we enter our idiocracy present instead of the inevitable idiocracy future. Yeah. I mean, I wouldn't even mind if we had ads on uniforms and ads during play if it saved us some time elsewhere if it cut down you know i mean i don't care about the aesthetics that much i don't think soccer fans care all that much that the jerseys say vodafone or whatever it's just kind of what they're used to but we're not getting anything in exchange for that it's not like well you give us this and we'll give you that.

It's just you have to watch all these ads and now we're going to stick some more ads in there. So it's unfortunate, but it's always going to be the case. And I mean, when you look back at like pictures of the outfield walls in old school ballparks, I mean, black and white, you know, I mean, black and white, you know, 30s, 40s, 50s, the walls are covered with ads for beer and razors and cigarettes. And, you know, it's not like a new thing. It's kind of, it's been there for a while. It's maybe getting a bit more intrusive in certain ways. But hey, capitalism. I know. And I know that you can't complain that much. But the thing about advertisements is at least when you talk about like the owners versus the players union and how maybe the players union didn't do such a great job of negotiating this last round, at least that is collectively bargained. But like this, what's happening with these broadcasts, we're not involved at all. We're not considered. They know that the viewers are going to be there. It's the world series and so the negotiations are between the between fox who has the world series contract fox is what's showing this right because i'm just

watching on the internet i assume it's fox yes so it's between fox and the advertisers they're doing all of the negotiating and and the the viewers are not even considered at all because the viewers are going to be there the fox will try to be like all right well we can't just like put duracell on the screen instead of the game we have to at least do a split screen we have to show the baseball game somewhere so like fox isn't just trying to throw everyone under the bus and like ruin the broadcast but they will find room for ads in every possible nook and cranny of the broadcast. And they tried out the split-screen six-second ad, I guess, last year.

I didn't remember because I don't remember anything from last year. I don't remember anything from a week ago. But now it's obvious that they're here and they're going to be here forever. And as long as baseball has downtime between pitches, which it always will, then we're going to get YouTube TV. And then, I don't know, YouTube brain signals, whatever happens in the future. And then YouTube God and YouTube president, YouTube emperor, YouTube everything. And so we all fade into the YouTube void and life becomes nothing but a constant streaming YouTube video.

All right. Well, I did want to mention Nathan Ivaldi just because I am curious to see how he is setting himself up for free agency here. He is like a really kind of fascinating free agent in that he is out here throwing 101 with amazing movement and not allowing any runs and seems to be a better pitcher genuinely than he has been for much of his career. But he has not been healthy for any extended period of time in his career really and even now when you see him throw in slow motion or something like you don't have to be a mechanics expert to just know like oh that that's not good that that doesn't

that doesn't seem like the ideal motion for preserving a pitcher's arm so i don't know like obviously someone's gonna sign him lots of people are to want to sign him throwing as hard as he does with the movement that he does and looking as good as he does. But how many years and how many dollars to commit to someone like this who has really no track record of sustained durability and success? Surprisingly, Nathan Eovaldi is only 28 years old because it feels like he's been around for a long time. And he has because he came up when he was, well, age isn't listed here, but when he was not 28 years old, when he was younger than that. Let's call him 21. So he throws really hard. And I know that like Buster Olney in particular, I think he's sort of taken the lead on talking up Nathan Eovaldi's free agent case because something about his last Tommy John surgery, the surgeon was like, oh this the holes in your bones are in good condition or something terrible so uh what an article like that sort of buries the lead of all right nathan jovaldi has had two tommy john surgeries in his life as

a pitcher and who's a comparable recent free agent who is kind of young and had good stuff and has had two tommy john surgeries that takes us right to Tyler Chatwood, which is not to suggest that Nathan Eovaldi is going to go the way of Tyler Chatwood. But, you know, Chatwood got three years and $38 million for being someone who was, at that point, an okay starting pitcher with upside and, like, real health concerns. And Nathan Eovaldi, he's had a good season, real health concerns. He's got good stuff. But I think if I had to get, like, I can't see a single team being like, we want to give you four or more guaranteed years.

It's just not the way that teams operate. There's way too much risk. Teams don't want to give money to players who were out for a year and a half. So my guess is that Uvalde is going to get three guaranteed years. He's going to get more than the Chatwood money. Call i don't know three years 50 million 45 million something like that and then there could be one of those fourth year vesting options this that's based either on innings in the previous year or like whether he ends the year on the disabled list with a specific elbow injury that you see sometimes because i i just can't see anyone going insane for Diovaldi.

But, I mean, he clearly is coming off a very successful season. He got up to, what, 111 regular season innings, and they were good. He got better over the course of the year, and he had a low ERA. He had good peripherals. He had the best strikeout rate of his career. Still not the strikeout rate you would expect from someone who throws 217 miles per hour, but he was good. And one of the surprising things about Iovaldi is that he just throws strike after strike after strike.

Like you think that when someone throws this hard, there'll be a strikeout pitcher, but he's really more of a pound the zone pitcher, which is unusual but you can tell that there is some sort of conversation that is consolidating around Uvalde as like he's going to be the big winter upside guy and someone's going to get a real bargain with Uvalde or something but teams aren't dumb here they know what he's been through and they know what that portends for his future so he's going to do well and it's I'm happy to see Uvalde having such a successful October after missing all of last season with injury. But I get the sense people are going to go a little over the edge here just because he's thrown a few good innings out of the bullpen. All right. Well, I want to talk a little more tomorrow about second guessing and what we know and what we don't know, because I'm writing something about that that will be up then. But before that is up, is there any second guessing that we want to do right now, given that there is a considerable amount of second guessing going on

and I'm sure some first guessing of Dave Roberts and a few of the decisions he's made, whether it was, oh, I don't know, not pinch hitting Max Muncy for David Fries in game one with what Matt Barnes pitching or bringing in Alex Wood instead of just letting Pedro Baez continue to pitch and face Devers and then Cora pinch hit for Devers with Nunez and we know what happened then. I mean, part of this is just that every move Cora has made this postseason has worked out perfectly, amazingly well. He is just on one of these runs where every time he does something, it just works out great, whether it was the right decision or not, or however unlikely the positive outcome that actually occurs actually was. It just keeps happening over and over and over again and so it's hard to measure up to that if you're any other manager but any of these Dave Roberts decisions stand out to you as egregious whether it's the couple I just cited or just generally I think people are kind of wondering why aren't Bellinger and Muncie and these guys who are good playing more why are

they always coming off the bench in the middle of the game instead of starting i my general inclination is to trust the guy who's managing managing his team the way he's managed it all season long but you know the dodgers are here for a reason and it's i think it is worth considering that down the stretch max muncy for example had a lot more strikeouts than he did early on and in the in the playoffs max muncy has batted 46 times, and he's struck out 20 times. His strikeout rate in the playoffs is 44%. He hasn't been bad, but there have been a lot of not very competitive at-bats, and I think it is worth considering the idea that Max Muncy is not actually one of the 10 best hitters in baseball. He was this season by any statistical measure.

But, you know, the Dodgers are smarter than just trusting what Max Muncy did for a few months. And they can see that opponents figured out some way to pitch around him down the stretch and that he has struggled against better pitching so far in the playoffs. And Cody Bellinger is a guy who has also struggled against some of the better pitching and some of the really hard throwing pitching that the Red Sox just keep keep running out there I get that what not hitting Muncie for a freeze in game one was was a little weird when when that happened it was a little weird and then Baez versus Wood it's it's almost impossible to look at that and not consider the result like it would have been a really interesting

conversation to have in the moment but then in the moment two pitches later there's a home run hit off alex wood and yeah and that kind of ruined it so now it's almost impossible to have a conversation in in good faith but maybe the real conversation to be had was bias or jansen in the moment which is maybe more significant because that was an important situation and the dodgers don't have that shut down guy in the bullpen i know that anecdotally alex wood hasn't looked very good lately he just hasn't had the the feel of a reliable pitcher but alex would never really looks very good he has a funny looking wind up and he doesn't have like pinpoint command and he just kind of gets outs pedro baez you've got ba, who has a big platoon split, who would be facing a lefty.

Or you've got Alex Wood, who has a good changeup, going up against a righty. Neither Devers nor Nunez is that good of a hitter. So you kind of pick and choose. Yeah. Well, Baez has one of those, like, you can see what you want with him when you look at his platoon splits. Because he's been good i mean this year particularly but over the course of his career i think he has allowed a lower weighted on base average to lefties than righties and you know that's over five years but not huge samples obviously but if you look at like the

strikeouts and walks he was like one of the best i think he was in the 90th percentile in strikeout minus walk rate against right-handed hitters at him and someone pointed out he was like lefties were 0 for their last 31 at-bats or something against Baez coming into that game. And so everyone's going to look at that and say, well, why would you take that guy out? No lefty can get a hit against him and then other people are gonna look at the bigger samples and the peripherals and say no he's not the guy who holds lefties hit list so i don't know it's i mean i think bias is not better against lefties there are not many pitchers and players in general who have reverse splits and if they do there's generally like some specific skill set that they have, a certain pitch that they throw that explains why they do that. And maybe Baez has a smaller split than some guys, but I don't know why he would be a reverse guy. Yeah. Now, as I look at things, as I look at the last four years on Sadcast, Baez is expected weighted on base against righties. Exactly the same, right? Yeah.

I think for his whole career. Yeah. Yeah. It's 284 against righties is 282. Exactly the same, right? Yeah. I think for his whole career, yeah. Yeah, it's 284 against lefties, so whatever. But if you're the Dodgers, I think that Baez is fine. And I understand he had just struck out Mitch Moreland. I get that there's an argument that maybe Baez against Devers is better than Wood against Nunez. Yeah. And then I think he did face Devers in the eighth with two outs in game two right and got him to ground out so I guess people are probably thinking of that as even more retroactive evidence that he could have

gotten him out in game one yeah I understand but it just seemed there there won't be a good faith conversation to be had about this like the the difference even best case biggest case I don't know biggest difference scenario Baez Devers or or-Nunez, you're talking about maybe one percentage point either way. It's so slim, unless you are really down on Alex Wood. I think maybe the better conversation again is do you just bring in Jansen there and try to slam the door? Just let Jansen run on adrenaline, see however long he can go and try to get back in the game. Because at that point, the Dodgers are down only one. Jansen could get out anyone. He the dodgers best relief weapon but so much there's

the always going to be second guessing especially in the world series and so much of at least my anecdotal observations have been like david roberts is trusting too much in the numbers and doesn't trust enough of his gut etc but this is for better or worse this is how a team like the dodgers operates this is the dodgers have won first place in worse, this is how a team like the Dodgers operates. The Dodgers have won first place in the division six years in a row. The reason that you manage by the numbers is that over a long enough sample of time, like, oh, I don't know, six consecutive seasons, then you're going to do well. But when you're in the World Series, some managerial moves work and some managerial moves don't. And like you said, Alex Cora is just on a hot streak. And this is why it sucks to be a manager.

Because when things work out, people are like, okay, great. But when they don't, when any decision that you make goes wrong, people, somebody on Twitter is going to say, that's a fireable offense. A fireable offense. And it's just, I don't know why any manager would ever be on Twitter is the real takeaway point here. Don't be on Twitter. Don't read any newspaper. Yeah, no, I don't think so. Well, I don't know how many of them are on Twitter.

That's a, they're like, are there any managers who are actually on Twitter, like have accounts? That's it. It seems like a rare thing, right? It's a good question. I guess like Ozzy Guillen tweeted, right? He had to have. I think he – or was it just his son who tweeted? I don't know.

I think maybe he tweeted. But there's an official account of Ozzy Guillen. I don't know if that's actually him doing a lot of the tweeting or not. But that is – even like Jeff Luno has a has a twitter account right but not a lot of managers out there well rocco baldelli new manager of the twins tweeted on october 14th but he's probably going to stop yeah well you can understand why there's not a lot of like umpire twitters out there either probably for for good reasons oh my god yeah that's like if you become a major league umpire and you have a social media presence that's probably like the first thing they they

probably do that faster with umpires than they do with baseball players getting drafted out of high school let's just erase everything throw away your computer your cell phone you don't get to talk to the world anymore you exchange letters with your wife and family and that's probably about it all All right. Well, I think we have covered these couple games. A lot of people are already writing the Dodgers off, which is ridiculous. They're a great team. They're now going home for three games.

There's every possibility that they will get back in the series and make it long and competitive, and I hope that is the case. But to this point, not the greatest series we've ever seen. I have one last thing to say because this is something I hadn't noticed before. So regarding Pedro Baez versus Alex Wood. So the argument with Alex Wood is generally that, okay, Wood is pretty good when he's throwing like 92-94, and he's not so good when he's throwing 89-91,

and Alex Wood has kind of lost his peak velocity in the middle of about last season, and it hasn't really come back. So Alex Wood, this season, I'm just going to read, and this is, I'm sorry for all of these numbers, but I'm going to read, starting in April, Alex Wood's average fastball velocity. So 90.4, 90.9, 91.1, 90.2, 90.1, 89.9, that's September. And in October, he's back up to 91.2. So in October, he's actually gained about a tick over

the second half of his season, which we are given to understand for Alex Wood would be meaningful. His changeup is harder. His breaking pitch is harder. His maximum velocity, granted, has not really moved. He's just been throwing closer to maximum velocity in October. But there's at least some evidence to suggest that Alex Wood is throwing a bit harder in October, which would improve his case a little bit, I guess, as a bullpen weapon. But still, I think what is abundantly clear

with uh with the dodgers that outside of jansen they just don't have that they don't have a josh hater the josh hater conversation is done for this october there's nobody like that and if you're the red sox at least you can go to i guess nathan you have all the out of the bullpen and yeah like you said maybe the dodgers equivalent is kenta miyeda but it just feels so different when someone's throwing 92 instead of 102 so this was kind of going to be the Dodgers potential vulnerability coming into the series and granted I guess what we've seen is that their vulnerability is everything to this point but the bullpen was always going to be a concern that and maybe maybe the defense because the Red Sox defense is much better but yeah here we are when when the starting pitchers don't work deep enough that's where the Dodgers can get exposed yep and it's just it's usually better to credit the players than to

debit the manager because the manager's moves mean only so much and the red sox are just really doing a great job of stringing hits together and getting runs in whether there's any larger significance to that or not we've already discussed but even if there isn't they're uh they're just doing a great job right now so good good job red socks you're good at hitting yeah that's basically it all right and by the way you did the post on cody bellinger hitting non-home runs that looked like home runs because there was yet another one that he did in when was it that he did the the most game one it was tuesday right yeah game one he did another one that was like not even a deep fly ball really and it fooled me and uh even though

i'm i'm kind of prepared for it now when i see bellinger hit. I'm ready for him to hit a fly ball that looks like a homer but isn't, but still kind of fooled me. So you put together a bunch of gifs of just a lot of examples of this. But do you have a theory about why he fools everyone so much more? I mean, clearly it's like something about his swing, but like what is it exactly? Or does he likellinger does more than anyone else. It's just what we noticed after last year's World Series. But the other hypothesis, I guess, would be that all of the clips that I put in, I think one thing they have in common is that they're all pulled fly balls. And first of all, a pulled fly ball is the most dangerous kind of fly ball to allow

unless you're facing Adrian Gonzalez or Joey Votto or something. But there's something about Bellinger doesn't really shorten. When he pulls a fly ball, he does not shorten up his he doesn't get cheated no he uh he just really lets it rip so that's part of it he has a he has a massive uppercut he doesn't have one of those level swings so he has an uppercut so when he pulls the ball in the air with an uppercut you're already thinking he did what he wanted he's uh he gets hits the ball at like a 30 degree launch angle some of this time and then his his follow-through just puts him in like home run pose like almost almost immediately it's a little bit like a ken griffey jr follow-through except not quite so sexy i was just gonna say that yeah yeah but just like the idea of cody bellinger long swing follow-through pulled

fly ball and i think that's what does it and sometimes he just the ball comes right off the end of the bat and you can't really see that as a viewer especially when the ball is pulled he can't tell where it hits or sometimes he just gets a little bit too under it which is again one of those things you can't really read that well with a pulled fly ball so i i don't know like the rate basis by which cody bellinger fools me or people more than anybody else but it definitely is something that i still going back and watching the clip from game two of last year's world series in the bottom of the ninth you and i were i think doing a live patreon broadcast for that game weren't we that was yeah we chose we really chose our games last year well uh but i mean that that i've never i've never

been more fooled by a ball off the bat than i was by – I mean, for a ball that wasn't a home run than I was by that one. And it was – I will never forget it for as long as I live, which hopefully will be much longer. All right. So, yeah, everyone be on your guard when Cody Bellinger is up. was the first person I ever got an autograph of or from, a first baseball player at least, and almost the last because I then lost interest in getting autographs. So I do have this autographed Clay Bellinger, Paul. And Clay Bellinger, I mean, the fun fact has been making the rounds about how those two guys have been in the, what, at least the championship series in every year of their careers to this point?

Is that, I think that's the fun fact because Clay only played for like three years plus one plate appearance and he got three World Series rings because he was with the Yankees when they were winning every year. And now Cody Bellinger has, well, I guess he's gone two for two with being in the World Series. So I guess it's that. Actually, it's, yeah, Clay Bellinger was, I don't know if he didn't play in four World Series, but he was with the 2002 Angels for two games. And they obviously won the World Series that year. So he's, collectively, the Bellingers are six for six in winning the pennant in their major league seasons, which is pretty impressive.

This was a podcast in which Ben Lindbergh said, quote, I love Clay Bellinger. Yeah. All right. Let's end on that note. So the Blue Jays did hire a manager in the time between when Jeff and I recorded and when I'm posting this episode. They chose Charlie Montoyo, the Rays bench coach. So I guess that's one trend, hiring Rays people. Kevin Cash is quite respected, and the Rays obviously had a successful season. They debuted the opener, so people want a piece of that Rays action. But yeah, you've got a couple Rays.

You've got Ausmus, who's kind of a retread. You've got David Bell, who is an organizational guy and former player, AAA, AA manager, kind of an old school route. So no one way to hire a manager in late 2018. By the way, don't know if we mentioned this in our anti-Red Sox strikeout rate narrative rant, but one more thing on that topic I will point out here. Joe Sheehan wrote this on Thursday. More or less the same Red Sox team reached the playoffs the last two seasons, getting eliminated in the division series both times. Those two teams were also very good in the regular season with two outs and runners in scoring position. The 2016 Red Sox were the best in baseball and the 2017 team rated in the top five in seven playoff games in those two years.

They hit.280,.333,.440 with runners in scoring position and two outs, went one and six, and got John Farrell fired. Thanks to all of you who tweeted at me about Justin Bieber's sideways burrito consumption. Yes, Justin and T-Pain and I have all engaged in this tactic from time to time. See my tweets on this subject if you'd care for further thoughts. In the meantime, you can support this podcast on Patreon by going to patreon.com slash effectivelywild, signing up and pledging some small money amount, as have the following five listeners, Merlin Reynolds, Kyle Floyd, Kyle Lewis, Tyler Bradley, and Bill Batterman.

Thanks to all of you. You can also join our Facebook group at facebook.com slash groups slash effectivelywild, and you can rate and review and subscribe to Effectively Wild on iTunes and other podcast platforms. Producer Dylan is back, so thanks to Dylan Higgins for his editing assistance. Please keep your questions and comments for me and Jeff coming via email at podcastwithvangrass.com or via the Patreon messaging system if you're a supporter. Our next episode will be recorded before there's more baseball, so I think we actually will get to some emails. So send them soon, and we will be back

to talk to you very soon. Outro Music