Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 1440: October Oddities

Episode Date: October 8, 2019

Ben Lindbergh and Sam Miller banter about Sam’s delayed postseason viewing schedule and five macro traits of the playoffs thus far (low batting averages with runners in scoring position, starters outperforming relievers, high pitch counts, the ball not carrying, and late-debuting postseason players), then analyze aspects of every ongoing and completed division series, including Mike […]

Where does one begin when you can't tell where you've been? Where's the parallel? With a schedule in hand, plot to move across this land It's a carousel Keeping track of our own text Are we charmed or are we vexed? Does history or vanity decide We've come this far?

Good morning and welcome to episode 1440 of Effectively Wild, a baseball podcast from Fangraphs.com, brought to you by our Patreon supporters. I am Sam Miller of ESPN, along with Ben Lindberg of The Ringer, small podcast from fangraphs.com brought to you by our patreon supporters i am sam miller of espn along with ben lindbergh of the ringer and ben we're going to talk about the playoffs i have to admit something i'm two two shows behind two two games behind i have yeah i've been watching games on delay for a couple of days and i have not caught up yet and so as a little experiment or something i was hoping you could tell me what happened in the Dodgers Nationals game and what happened in the Twins Yankees games.

I would like to hear how you describe a baseball game. You're going to have to explain this to me. You're watching the playoffs on a delay. Yeah. What? Why? Well, I don't, you know, I don't you know i don't have i don't have cable and mlb tv subscription does not include the postseason sure and so i can listen to games i have three options basically i

can listen to games i can watch them about an hour and a half to two hours after they end on mlb tv or i can find some sort of scary stream online that I always feel a little nervous about. And so usually I do the listening thing and then like a sort of a combination of the listening and the watching after the fact. And so in the last couple of days, I have been, because there've been so many games and I've wanted to see some of the early games. So I've just waited, but then that means I can't listen to the later games because someone will say the score of the earlier game. And so I'm

just constantly catching up. I'm like at night, I've got to watch the afternoon game. And then I wake up at five in the morning and watch the night game. And so I just finished the Braves and the Cardinals. That was a good game. It was a very good game. Yeah. And I have managed to learn absolutely nothing about the Dodgers Nationals or the Yankees Twins. And since we're going to talk about them, I don't think there's any point in me waiting until tomorrow and watching them. I think I should just find out what happened. So tell me what happened. Wow. This feels like a big responsibility. I have to spoil the playoffs for you. This seems like a very suboptimal way to approach the playoffs. Can't you get cable for a month or something? You're a baseball writer. I've been doing this for 10 years, 11 years. This is my 11th post. This is my 11th postseason.

And every year, well, the first six years, I thought this is going to be a disaster. 11th postseason and every year. Well, the first six years I thought this is going to be a disaster. And, you know, I kept getting new jobs. So I feel like it's working. I guess so. I feel like you could probably expense something. I don last time we spoke or the last time Meg and I spoke was Saturday morning. So that was after the first two games of each of the NL series and the first one game of each of the AL series. Now we are speaking late Monday night. So there's been a lot of baseball since then. The Twins are circling the drain as we speak right now. And depending on how long we talk and how long they play,

they may be eliminated by the end of this podcast, or will have been by the time people are listening to this already. So there were four games on Monday, and there was a chance that every series would end on Monday. And it looks right now like only one of the four will. And so I have just indirectly told you that the Nationals won their game. And it was not particularly close ever. There were some... Wait, how did Rich Hill do? Rich Hill did fine. He only pitched a few innings, which was expected, of course, but he did all right. But Max Scherzer showed up and did what he was supposed to do.

What did he do exactly? He pitched seven innings and gave up one run. Oh, man. And do you know how many pitches he threw? It was not a ton. It was over 100, but not way over 100, as I recall. I've been noticing that there have been some very high pitch counts. So last year, the most pitches anybody threw in a start was 108.

Oh, wow. Yeah, we've passed that a couple of times. This year, we've already had three that are over 117. Yeah, that's right, because Wainwright went 120, right? Yeah, Wainwright and then Flaherty and Cole. Yeah, that's right. So the Nationals really needed that, obviously. Who relieved Scherzer?

Sean Doolittle relieved Scherzer. I can't believe I'm just telling you who pitched and who won the most basic information here. But it was for once not a starting pitcher relieving a starting pitcher for the Nationals. So it was just Doolittle hudson went uh i think do little went in a third and then hudson finished it off and they were fine so right now the score this score was six to one oh wow six to one yeah they brought in their closers for the six to one lead yeah that's right that is that nationals bullpen incentives right there yeah so in the twins game which is still going on right now the yankees are winning three to nothing in

about to be the top of the eighth so that looks like it's about to be over but i will let you know when it goes three to nothing in the top of the eighth yeah and that was a severino start yes indeed how deep did he go he went four innings he looked very good and odorisi yep okay he was pretty good too any home runs yeah there been some home runs glaber torres hit a home run and that was it actually so this will just be our new segment who was the first reliever box scores to say who Who was the first reliever? Ben reads the box scores to Sam. Who was the first reliever out of the pen for the Yankees? For the Yankees, Tommy Canely.

Oh, interesting. That's interesting. You know, Canely, he was pretty consistently in the seventh inning. You know, that was like his inning. And that always struck me as a little odd because if I were to rank the Yankees five, Canely would definitely not be third. He might be fifth and he might be fourth, but he would not be third. And through the end of the season, he was in that seventh inning, but they have not

used him that way. Green came in after him in one game. This game too? Yeah, Green's been great. Green was really great in September. I think he struck out half the guys he faced or something, so he seems to be back to monster Chad Green. Oh, not just that. I think since he came off the DL in mid-May, I think he was second in relief war in the majors. Yeah, he made some mechanical changes they were showing on the broadcast, and he's been back to his old self. Any other basic baseball info I can provide for you?

No. Okay. All right. Well, I'll let you know if we get a final score, or I guess now that you know what's happening, you can keep tabs on that yourself. All right. All right. By the way, big deal. I mean, the Dodgers, that's a pretty big deal that the Dodgers are having to go to game five against the Nationals.

I mean, they've got to face Strasburg now. There's a day between now and then, so probably Scherzer's got anything in him. Yeah, could be. If it needs to be. And the Dodgers can go Buehler with Kershaw ready because Kershaw didn't pitch in this game. Yeah, they can, although I don't know. I don't know if everybody treats Kershaw out of the bullpen the same way that they would treat Scherzer out of the bullpen. No, maybe not. You probably shouldn't, but he was ready to go in this game,

and they ended up not needing to use him, so he will be extra ready to go in game five. You know, that game that the Nationals blew where Corbin gave up six runs, before he gave up any of those runs there was that little dinky ground ball single that david freeze hit you know against the shift to keep the inning going right and uh it just has struck me multiple times since then that if you know if that ball which was not hit hard had been somehow fielded corralled the

nationals would have uh they would have won that game. It would have been a very different narrative story. And also right now, maybe they would be celebrating. There have been a lot of almosts and close calls that we could come up with. There always are, but I can't think of a few. So before we get into each of the series and maybe just do a general catch-up with everything, each of the series and maybe just do a general catch up with everything. I have a few macro level observations to make just about what we've seen so far in this postseason because it's been sort of strange in a few different ways, I think. So the first thing that stands out to me is that

no one is getting hits with runners in scoring position. We've seen so many runners stranded, so many rallies that just die, so many guys getting out of jams, sometimes bases loaded, no outs jams. That happened once in this Yankees-Twins game. Things like that have been happening quite a lot. Right now, batters are hitting 185 with runners in scoring position. No, update 183 with runners in scoring position, which is extremely low, obviously. And usually it's lower in the postseason because offense is down in general and you get better hitters, but you also get better pitchers and better defenses and more aggressive bullpen usage and colder temperatures, et cetera, et cetera. But the gap is not usually

this big. Like last year, batters hit 254 with runners in scoring position during the regular season and then it fell to 236 in the postseason i didn't look at previous postseasons but i would guess something like that is typical whereas this year it's down from 262 during the regular season to 183 so far which I doubt will persist throughout the rest of this postseason. But that has been one of the trends, just lots of guys getting stranded. And that was sort of the story of the Braves Cardinals game four that you mentioned, because I think they were a combined one for 19 with runners in scoring position in that game. So don't know if this means anything, just typical postseason plus small

sample but it has been very evident yeah well uh they have not been striking out more with runners in scoring position in fact with runners in scoring position the strikeout rate has actually fallen it is a 230 babbitt and yeah there's been a lot of great defensive plays made and just maybe some bad luck, but it's been strange. Yeah, I hadn't even noticed that one. I've also noticed some macro things that have been odd, but that was not one of mine. Uh-huh. Well, one other one that comes to mind is that starting pitchers have been much better than relievers. Oh, yeah, that's the one.

Yeah. That's like the big one. Like almost twice as much. Or half the stat yeah well right i don't know ben i've always wondered this if you allow half as many runs are you twice as good i don't feel like that i don't feel like that tracks maybe you're more than twice as good i do i think you are more than twice as good you i mean that what's the baseline because relievers right now have a run allowed rate that's roughly replacement level and starters have a run allowed rate that's much better and so if you were to somehow turn this into war you'd have the relievers would have a war of zero and the starters would have a war of like you know 12 or

whatever and so then we wouldn't say twice as good we'd say like infinitely better or like if the net relievers had a war of one, we might say 12 times better. And that's not right either. None of this is right. I don't know how you say twice as good. I never know how to do that. Anyway, they've allowed half as many runs. Basically, yeah.

So I've got the updated numbers here with a couple innings left to go in this Yankees-Twins game. though, in this Yankees-Twins game. Starters, I believe, I've calculated this by hand because once we switch over to the postseason, it becomes more than twice as hard to look up stats. That's for sure. I don't know why that always is, but we have so many stats at our command during the regular season and then October rolls around and suddenly I'm hunting for sites that I never visit to look at their splits and things because the stats i'm used to just don't show up anymore so i think that starting pitchers have a 2.73 era right now in the postseason and relievers are at 5.08 so that's a really big gap and it's not even that there have been like a ton of openers really so far like i don't think that's skewing the stats so much.

Has there been, you had the Twins kind of had, kind of did one with Randy Dobnik, but even he's a swing man slash starter. He mostly started in the regular season. And isn't he the only one? I think so, right? Yeah, so that's not a factor here. It's just that starting pitchers have been way better. And we've gotten through at least game four now. So it's not like we've only seen the aces and the worst starters haven't pitched yet. That's not the case either. So it's maybe just small sample. I don't know we talked during the regular season about the gap between starters and relievers getting smaller but obviously this is extreme and i don't know if it means anything but it has

certainly been one of the trends in the division series and and the wild card games too yeah it's been it has felt like chaos when some really good relievers have been in uh like i have not felt relieved that they're in the game very much. And these are players who were really incredible during the regular season and who I had kind of pumped myself up to loving because I had done this really like exhaustive survey of the postseason bullpens. And so there were a lot of these players who i did you say

they were all going to be bad i i unfortunately i i talked about how like they they were inspiring and how they'd come out of nowhere and now they were successful and uh and just i hoped they never had to go back to the mediocre lives they had been living they're all going back to the mediocre lives they had been living. They're all going back to their Uber. They're all, exactly. They're all, I mean, fortunately, Randy Dubnik should still have a job. And so everybody else will maybe need him as a reference. Tyler Duffy, for instance, Tyler Duffy was probably the best reliever in baseball in the second half, or maybe the second best reliever in baseball in the second half. And he had a sort of like, Ooh, that was a little bit worrisome outing against the Yankees in game one. And then he gave up four runs in two thirds of an inning in game two.

So he is an example of that. Carlos Martinez, of course, Carlos Martinez had only blown one save after becoming the closer over the course of like three plus months and he has had kind of like two and a half bad outings uh too bad and then one sort of scary save uh wait i'm trying these games are gonna have these games are so confusing yeah he didn't have a save he pitched in a tie he gave up a lead off double and got out of the inning. Right. That's what he did with Acuna. Getting a double. So he has been shaky and like, well, there's been a bunch. There's been a whole bunch of these players who have done that. So yeah.

And then you got the Nationals dragging everybody down. Oh, reliever ERA just went up because Eddie Rosario hit a home run off of Zach Britton. Oh, what's the score? 3-1. Oh. Bottom of the game. Ryan Presley gave up two runs after I had done so much to... You know, Ryan Presley was so good that I actually talked myself into ranking the Astros

bullpen ahead of the Yankees bullpen. And then I sat with that for like six hours leading up to the piece actually running. And I talked myself into going back. But Ryan Presley is just that good. leading up to the piece actually running and i talked myself into going back so but ryan presley is just that good and he uh and then roberto asuna had to be relieved because he was not pitching well and giovanni gallegos mark melanson mark melanson blew us a save but then he came back and pitched well josh tomlin was pitching the high leverage inning yeah the braves i did not think josh tomlin would get in a game i didn't even mention josh tomlin in pitching the high leverage inning for the Braves. I did not think Josh Tomlin would get in a game.

I didn't even mention Josh Tomlin in the seven Braves relievers that I named. And he's pitching high leverage now because nobody else can be trusted. Yeah, it's very strange. Josh Hader, of course, blew that game. Someone on the Rays got hit sometime. I don't remember who. Someone did, though. Someone, one of the good ones.

Oliver Drake gave up a run. Oh, Emilio Pagan too, didn't he? Emilio Pagan when he came in. Didn't Emilio Pagan give up a bunch of runs in the game two? We're just naming relievers. We're naming the relievers, but they've all done the thing. Yeah, right. Yeah, so that's a trend.

I mean, it's not even a trend really. It's a thing that has happened and probably won't continue to happen. I don't know why it would, but it's been strange. Pagan gave up one unearned run, so forget him. Okay. We named one name too many. All right.

So that's another thing that I've noticed. Another thing. Wait, wait, wait. We talked about the relievers portion of that, but do you have any – the starters thing, we're just chalking up to like oh good we've been blessed with good storylines this year right yeah there's nothing to it beyond that probably not i don't know they're a bunch of good starters and they've happened to have good games yeah i mean we're talking a grand total of like 20 games that's not a lot of games and and that probably explains what you mentioned about the high pitch counts because starters are pitching really well.

So guys are just leaving them in. And we can talk about maybe whether some of them have been left in a little too long. But that is why we're getting these Ironman outings because they're just not giving up runs. And managers still find it difficult to pull guys when they're having good games sometimes. So another thing that has stood out to me, and I know that you have noticed this too, because we were both exchanging emails with a listener earlier in the day, but it really looks to me like the ball is not carrying. It just seems like we're not getting the playoffs of the juiced ball, i had anticipated and i wrote something last week

about how this might look like there's potential for embarrassment for mlb because what if you get a pivotal game decided by this fluky looking homer something like 11 of the home runs that were hit during this regular season according to smart stats people i consulted would not have been hit even with the same launch conditions, same exit velo, same launch angle, if you had just substituted the 2018 ball. And so I thought we would almost inevitably get some big homer hit this month where it would just stand out so starkly to us that, oh, this is because of the ball and you wouldn't have had this ball go over

the wall in an earlier year or probably a later year. And people would be upset about this because it would be more obvious than it is during the regular season, or at least it might decide a game. It might decide a series. Someone might get eliminated because of one of these fluky juiced ball home runs, especially because scoring decreases in the playoffs and home runs tend to make up a greater percentage of that scoring. So it would be more obvious and more likely to be decisive. Whereas during the regular season, of course, we all notice tons of homers, but

it's hard to say, is it helping any one particular team or another? But I thought maybe this would come to the fore in the playoffs. And then if the ball was changed after the playoffs, then it would make fans of that team that got eliminated mad in retrospect because it's too late for them to be helped by this. Anyway, if anything, it sure seems to me like the ball is not carrying. And whereas in the past few years, I've had the experience of seeing a lot of balls that I didn't think would go out, go out. Now it's the opposite, where something to it. So we may not be completely imagining this, but that has certainly stood out to me too. Yeah. Well, I mean, the one anecdote is Ronald Acuna thinking that he'd hit a home run and having it not be a home run. And I think during the Braves Cardinals game today, I think it was Goldschmidt hit a home run that was barely out, and the announcers commented that the way that he had watched the ball,

you really got the sense that he thought it was going to be a bomb, way out, and it wasn't way out. And yeah, there have been a lot of outs that I thought were going to be home runs. And now I look forward to Rob doing real analysis of this. It is worth noting that since you and I emailed, the home run rate has gone up just in one day of play. And home runs per plate appearance this postseason are the same as they were in 2017,

which was the second most juiced ball year kind of ever. They're down 15% from the regular season, but they're higher than they were in 2016 or 2018, which were also home run heavy years and higher than 2015. And again, we're only talking about some couple thousand plate appearances or so. And so home runs are down from the regular season by about 15%, but they're still at about where 2016 and 2018 levels, which were also like very home run heavy, if not quite the super juiced ball of 2017 or the mega juiced ball of 2019.

So still very, very home runny. And, you know, we've seen games that were determined by a series of home runs, but yeah, I mean the, the, the game that especially stood out to me was the third game of the LDS between the Braves and the Cardinals. And it was just like warning track after warning track after warning track. And every single one you'd get a big call and you'd get a big crowd, crowd noise. And I, I mean, i'm so conditioned to think that any any squarely hit fly ball or really any fly ball is going to go out yeah and just one after the other you know dexter fowler run back to the warning track and stop and catch it and they all surprised me yeah i don't know what to make of this again small sample etc let's wait for the data but if the

data do confirm that the ball is not flying as well, that the drag is increased, I don't know how I would explain that because the postseason ball isn't different from the regular season ball, or at least it shouldn't be. I mean, the text is different, but the actual ball itself is not. and so you'd have to put on your conspiracy hat and say that I don't know that MLB was thinking along the same lines that I was that oh no we don't want the juiced ball to become the story of this postseason so let's do something but even then what would they do because it really seems from everything I've heard and read and people I've talked to that they don't really know why the ball is carrying the way it has been I've talked to that they don't really know why the ball is carrying the way it has been. I've talked to people even within the last week who have been part of the committee that's studying that, and they've said that they still don't exactly have the cause pinned down, although they're getting closer. And Rob Manfred said last week that he had reconvened that committee of

statisticians and scientists and engineers and physicists who had studied the ball and produced a report on it last spring, that that committee got back together and he was expecting a new report after the World Series, and then he would see what that report said and potentially consider changing the ball based on that. So if he was saying that last week, then that would suggest that he has not changed the ball yet. So I don't know if there's no exact pinpointed cause for why the ball is behaving this way. Then in theory, they wouldn't be able to change it unless they found a pallet of old balls from a few years ago and just subbed those in for the playoff ball. So I don't even know how that would work, but it would be somewhat suspicious if that happened. Okay. Yeah. And then another small thing that I've noticed, this is just like a fun fact more than anything, but Severino is the eighth player to play this postseason who did not make his season debut until after August, so started in the majors this season in September. And that has never happened before. That's a

record, which I know because I wrote about this late in September, kind of looking forward and looking for guys who might make an impact in the postseason, even though they had not showed up in the majors until September, whether because they were returning from injury or because they were rookies who got promoted. So the previous record for the number of guys like that in a single postseason was seven. And Severino is the eighth that we have had this postseason. You had Brent Suter and Gratterol and Severino and Gavin Lux and Kyle Tucker, Jesus Lozardo. Darren O'Day. Did you say Darren O'Day?

I did not say Darren O'Day, actually. So yeah, if Darren O'Day counts. He didn't pitch before September? No, he didn't pitch before September. All right. So Darren O'Day is another one. And Sean Murphy with the A's and Sean Minaya with the A's. So yeah, that's nine unless we're missing someone else,

which again, don't think this really means anything. It's just kind of a cool thing because I like it when guys show up at the end of a season kind of out of nowhere, and then they make an impact in the postseason. It's cool when it's a rookie like Lux or Lizardo or someone like that who just shows up and immediately is playing in these really high leverage games. But it's also nice when someone like Severino comes back from missing the whole season and then can kind of salvage his season just in a few games and can go into the winter feeling good about how his year went, even though he missed most of it if he contributes at the most important time.

So I like that. I like that a lot. year went, even though he missed most of it if he contributes at the most important time. So I like that. I like that a lot. I guess you might dislike it because you might say that it's almost cheap for teams to succeed in the playoffs because of players who weren't there all season. And there is that loophole with some guys where you can sort of sub guys in for a playoff roster spot if you had someone on the IL who had served his whole term on the IL and is still hurt, then you can sub them in. And maybe that's a loophole that should be closed. I don't know. But I like it.

I like when guys show up out of nowhere late in the season and then suddenly play a prominent role. And we've seen more players like that this year than ever before. All right. All right. All right. So going to individual series, I suppose I'd like to start with the Braves Cardinals series because that's been my favorite so far. That's just been a really fun series for a lot of reasons. And I think game four was just a strange game. I mean, it was 10 innings.

It was kind of back and forth. There was a lot of weirdness going on. As I mentioned, these teams combined were one for 19 with runners in scoring position. And there was like a ball hit the bag and a ball got lost in the sun in the shadows. And that led to a hit. Both of those led led to hits and then there was the Yadier Molina passed ball and then there was the error by Carpenter and then the ball that Carpenter and Molina kind of collided and didn't catch the foul pop-up and those things led to runs Molina before he became the hero of this game was actually kind of looking like the goat of this game or one of them. I actually saw a tweet from like a professional sports person before the big hit, obviously, that was saying that Molina looked old and that he was like two for 15 to that point in the series. And he'd had that passed ball, which was costly.

And then the collision with Carpenter. He collision with Carpenter. And then, of course, he became the hero because he had the one hit with runners in scoring position, which was just sort of a duck snort single that was just off the glove of Freddie Freeman. If Freddie Freeman were 6'6 instead of 6'5, he probably would have caught that ball. But it tied the game. And then Molina won it with a sack fly. so this has been a really entertaining series a lot of fun pitchers duels that then turn into fun late inning duels and there's been some managerial intrigue I think what sort of stands out to me is that it seems to me like Mike Schilt has made a bunch of

mistakes at least in the last couple games that he has not ended up paying for at all, which is living a charmed life. Well, he paid for one of them. I think I'm going to write about one of them, although I don't know what the frame of that is going to be. But his decision to intentionally walk Brian McCann was basically the same decision that you and Meg were talking about with Davey Martinez. And while Davey Martinez got away with his, Mike Schultz went terribly wrong.

He intentionally walked Ryan McCann to face Dansby Swanson and McCann was the go-ahead run. Swanson had the big hit and McCann's run, although he would have been pinch run for by that point, McCann's run would be the one that won the game. So that's one that, and guess well i was gonna say i guess you could say leaving wainwright in uh because he lost that game too yeah uh but uh they got out of that inning so in fact leaving wainwright and did not come back to yeah so that's mech and i talked

about how he left flarity in for a long time 117 pitches and flty looked like he was kind of tiring but I think obviously that didn't really come back to bite them in the sense that that was the game where the Cardinals never scored and managers sort of escape scrutiny when their team doesn't score because ultimately no matter what pitching move Mike Schilt had made if his his team hadn't scored, it wouldn't have mattered anyway. And Flaherty obviously is their best pitcher, and he had been pitching well, which is not necessarily predictive, but most managers treat it as if it is. And he's had such a spectacular second half

that you kind of get a special dispensation for that. But then leaving in Wainwright, as long as he did, seven and two- thirds, 120 pitches, he got more out of Wainwright than he realistically could have expected. Wainwright was great. And then he just kept pushing him into the fourth time through the order with Acuna and Albies coming up again. And he was cruelly tiring and sort of losing the strike zone. And then yes, he did get out of that unscathed because Andrew Miller came in and got the out with the bases loaded. And then there was the

intentional walk that went wrong. But then in game four, you could kind of fault Schilt, I think maybe for leaving in Dakota Hudson as long as he did. Oh my goodness. I mean, we are now much less prone to jump on a manager than we were five years ago. But five years ago, this would have been, or three years ago, maybe, this would have been, I mean, this was the prototypical manager blunder. Yeah. Right. He left Hudson in to hit for himself with two runners on. Hudson's not a special pitcher.

That was what, the bottom of the fourth? The bottom of the fourth. He had pitched four innings. There's first and second, two outs, right and what was it two one or three one two one three one yeah yeah and so he left hudson in to bat for himself thinking that he would you know get a couple more innings out of him and hudson you know predictably made an out ended the inning so there goes the rally and then he did not make it through the next inning. And I think that to some degree, what Schilt knows that we don't know is that he doesn't trust his good relievers right now. I think I think that it seems sort of semi clear to me that he does not like his relievers as much as I, a person who has not watched his relievers very much, but looked at their stats recently. Do. And so it's understandable.

Like if you're me, you're like, bring in Gallegos. Gallegos is awesome. And if you're him, then you don't. You apparently do not feel that way about Gallegos. Gallegos has been worked pretty hard, right? Yeah. I think he didn't pitch so well down the stretch. Yeah, he didn't.

That's exactly right. Well, although it was more August that he didn't pitch so well down the stretch. Yeah, he didn't. That's exactly right. Well, although it was more August that he didn't pitch, but he also had a little bit of a bump in September, and so did Andrew Miller. And we saw Carlos Martinez, of course. And Carlos Martinez had not had any bumps until recently, but now he's just bumps all the time. And so you have to allow for that. I mean, everybody's trying to get their 27 outs.

And there are, I think most of the time when we're dismissive or disapproving of a manager decision, it's because they're not going to the most trustworthy option for those outs. But when you have no trustworthy options, then it becomes a little bit chaotic and harder to judge who the best person is. So he thought, well, I assume he thought get a couple more innings out of Hudson, which makes a certain amount of sense, especially if you knew that the bullpen wasn't very good. But that's kind of the classic postseason managerial move that you did not see in the last like two postseasons that you saw a lot and then everybody moved away from it and so all of those I mean I would say that all of Schilt's pitching moves in the last three days with his starters none of them is necessarily bad all of them are unusual to see and so it's a little jarring to see them because last year

if you watch last year's postseason you would have just thought well that that that's not that those sorts of managerial moves are from an earlier era that's not how pitchers are used anymore and he's kind of using them in a different way which is interesting i don't i'm not i'm not disapproving of them necessarily i thought that hudson he should have he should have pinch hit for the with wainwright and Flaherty, Wainwright's last couple batters seemed like a real stretch. Flaherty, I mean, whoever takes Flaherty out of the game. Yeah, I didn't mind Flaherty so much. But it's interesting to see because Schilt has not managed in a postseason before.

We did not know how he would do things. And it's been interesting to see him do things in a way that is a little bit unlike the other seven managers right now yeah and it hasn't hurt him as much as it could have and the Braves could have easily won that game I mean again 0 for 9 with runners in scoring position they had a lead off triple a lead off double they stranded those runners so it could very easily have gone In the other direction but it didn't And now we're getting a game 5 And a Flaherty-Fulton-Evich

Rematch on Wednesday So that'll be fun So I like this series Do we have a Fangraphs odds for that yet? Single game odds for that? I was excited to find out about single game odds And then I immediately forgot about them I don't know But I will try to find out about single-game odds, and then I immediately forgot about them.

I don't know, but I will try to find out. I don't think so. I don't think we have them ahead of time that far. Yeah. So the other NL series, we talked about it a bit, but this was kind of the opposite case where in the Patrick Corbin decision, I think that was the perfectly right decision to bring in Patrick Corbin in relief. That was a good matchup. He was the best pitcher,

best option at that time. And it backfired, or at least things went wrong. Corbin wasn't so bad, or at least he wasn't at first. And then as you noted, some things kind of ran off the rails and maybe some luck went against him. And then that

unraveled but that was a case of i think being aggressive in a good way and working within the constraints that you have because martinez clearly doesn't trust much of his bullpen either and so he's been trying to avoid using it and it had been working up until that point so good process bad result yeah i mean what are you going to do? That's, that's obviously the plan going into this series. It's obviously, it seems to me the best plan. They just don't really have any other way of, of doing it. That's better than bringing in one of the three best starters in baseball when he's available. And so they went to the plan and it didn't work in the same way that all sorts of pitchers sometimes

don't pitch well that day he just happened to not pitch well in a in a situation where there's an extra spotlight both because of the leverage of it and because of the unfamiliarity of it that makes it easier to second guess but i mean certainly nobody would second guess it or i first guess no and nobody and nobody in the world, well, this is going to backfire before he came in. I think if Wander Suero had come in, and by the way, I really like Wander Suero, but if Wander Suero had come in, I think a lot of people would have said, well, this is going to backfire because Wander Suero has a very bad ERA. But with Patrick Corbin, that's just such the obvious move.

And that's the case where if you're mad at the manager for that then you have a certain worldview that is just not going to allow you to ever like a manager right and so we're getting two game fives on Wednesday which will be a lot of fun so this

series goes back to LA and it was nice by the way in both of those games for games for game force. You had the long tenured hometown hero kind of guy with the big blows. So you had Molina driving in the tying and winning runs in the Cardinals game. And then I don't know if I'm breaking news to you here, but Ryan Zimmerman hit a three run homer. Yeah. Ryan Zimmerman is a pinch hitter no he was

he started at first okay but but that was nice original gnat still hanging around and getting the the big blow in this game always well i also liked that in game three i guess it was on the road so maybe it doesn't count for for your for your uh touching narratives but that russell martin got the big hit yes that's right yeah that was cool too the dodgers yeah so i don't know is there anything else to say about the statures nets series i i guess we've kind of covered it so no it's just that it's uh it's a i i guess that we haven't seen a game four in the alds round between the Nationals and the Astros. So maybe this will go exactly the same way.

But the way that we talked about the... Rays and the Astros. What did I say? Nationals. Yeah, they're not playing. No. The Astros. The Rays and the Astros, the first two games of that, we came out of that and everybody was just like,

wow, you can really see. This is an unstoppable team playing unstoppably. This is the rare occurrence where you don't need a large sample for the team's greatness to show up. It looked like they were just going to roll over another great team. And the Dodgers, who I think are roughly the equal of the Astros, are going into a do-or-die game against a starting pitcher who shut them down and they got to be a little scared the Dodgers could the Dodgers could get knocked out of this

postseason absolutely they could get knocked out of this postseason like two innings from now basically it could happen if they give up like six runs wow yeah the Nationals could win a playoff round. Oh my goodness. That's even more shocking. I know. Yeah, so that is a tough matchup. LA will be at home, but having to face Strasburg again with Scherzer perhaps available for an inning and Corbin potentially too. That's pretty scary, even though they have Buehler and Kershaw and, I guess, Ryu if they wanted to. But, I mean, they may be—I don't know if there is a clear starting pitcher advantage there, but the point is it's basically a toss-up.

And, yeah, it's very easy to imagine the Dodgers getting knocked out after being such a powerhouse all season long. They'll win it, though. Well, I don't know. I mean, I'm not saying that they will, like, as a prediction. I'm saying now that we have said that, they will. Yeah, okay. All right. So, as you mentioned, the Astros-Rays series.

So, Meg and I spoke before the incredibly dominant Garrett Cole start which it's not even really surprising anymore to see him just mow down a team and strike out 15 it was sort of striking just how much better he looked than the other pitchers who had pitched in that series so far because all of them were really great too. Like when I was watching Tyler Glasnow, I was like, oh my gosh, how could anyone ever hit Tyler Glasnow? This is incredible. And of course, Verlander is Verlander

and Blake Snell is a reigning Cy Young Award winner. But Garrett Cole just looked like he comes from a different planet than those other guys right now. He is just unbelievable. The Astros haven't lost a Garrett Cole start since before the All-Star break, I think. And he's struck out double digits for 10 games in a row, which is a record.

And yeah, I just don't really know. It looks very difficult to beat him right now. And in game three, it was almost like a respite oh we get to face sack cranky now who is also great but a step down in greatness and was not great in that game and charlie morton of course is it's hard to rank the starting pitchers in this series because charlie morton's like right below colin verlander. If you had to rank the Cy Young award contenders, Morton might finish third in that race. I don't know. So he was good only for five innings, but he was really good. And yeah, suddenly it was the Rays looking like the much

better team. And it was what, 10-3 by the end. So now, of course, they have to beat Verlander and Cole again, which has only been done twice this season and not since June, I think. But Verlander is pitching on short rest, which is very unusual for him. And I don't know if that compromises him at all, but that's what I would have done too, is bring back Verlander and just try to finish this thing off. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I probably would too. The gap between Verlander and a bullpen game or any other option they had is probably big enough that you take the third, the three-day rest hit. I don't, yeah, I don't know. the third uh the three-day rest hit i don't yeah i don't know there's something to i would sort of be more confident if it was like verlander coming out of the bullpen for innings four through seven

than if it were him starting and trying to you know throw 110 pitches yeah but i mean there's there's absolutely nothing in the world that i don't think that justin verlander can do at this point and so i'm not that nervous i always i I have just gotten it pounded into my head that the, that the short rest penalty is like always underestimated and very rarely is do this, do the, does the urgency of the situation really justify it? And I don't know that I am really even capable of accepting a short rest start without instinctively thinking, oh, but it turns good pitchers bad. Yeah. Yeah. Well, even if it is significant, he's so good that he'll still be pretty good. They could have gone with Urquidy, I guess, with Verlander waiting in the wings or a bullpen game. They ended up using Wade Miley in game three.

He was a starting option for them too. But I don't know. When I wrote late Saturday night after the Cole start, I wrote then that it seemed like it would probably be Verlander in game four if necessary, and it is, and that is probably what I would do too. By the way, update on this Yankees-Twins game. It's now 5-1 heading to the bottom of the ninth. So there was another homer.

Cameron Mabin hit a homer. And we've got two more runs charged to relievers. So the reliever ERA now is up to 5.22. Not good. So I've been sort of stalling

hoping that this game would go final by the time we got around to it and it's close is there anything else that we want to say about Astro's Rays? did you see the pitch overlay gif that Pitching Ninja tweeted of Charlie Morton

we're what are we 6 years since the pitch overlay gifts first yeah it was like darvish was the first right yeah yeah i think it was in 2012 or 2013 yeah and they were they were just incredible when the first time you saw one you'd never seen anything like it and then they went away for a while you never saw them anymore and then in the last couple years, you've been seeing them more. There was one guy who did them at first. Yeah, exactly.

Like a fan graphs guy. Right, and he just was like, well, I've done enough. He did six and then he thought. No one knew how to do it. He took the tech with him. He had the patent, took the IP. Right. There is like a varying quality level in these pitch overlays because sometimes they look great. Other times it's like it looks like the Neo in the Matrix thing where you can see like it's like Agent Smith. There's like a hundred different bodies moving and you can't really see.

That's true. Yeah. It's like I can't tell if that was impressive or not. I know what you mean. Yeah. Yeah. And so, and probably like you could, you could probably come up with a pitch overlay that would make almost any picture look good. Well, that's the other thing too, is that I've, I sort of feel this way when I see the tunneling graphics on broadcast too. They all look, they all look incredible. I've never, so I get the feeling that it's just like, like, well, yes, all pitchers are

amazing. Like they're all wizards. all pitchers have pitches that move in different directions yeah which when you overlay them it's like wow they can make pitches move i can't do that so there's a part of me that has always felt like the that since the first batch that came out and that were mind-blowing those were like truly those were like the good part of the matrix right the bullet time right sort of advance yeah since then i actually kind of just scroll past the pitch overlays i i prefer to just see one pitch usually the two next to each other i i feel like i'm sort of being like i don't know if i'm it's not that i'm being tricked it's that i don't even really know like i don't know like you say i don't know if I'm, it's not that I'm being tricked. It's that I don't even really know, like, I don't know. Like you say, I don't know that what makes it special.

Anyway, so on and so forth. That's my thing is I felt like these pitch overlays have not quite found their perfect gif. And then the Charlie Morton, that is the perfect one, right? I mean, it's incredible. And I cannot, I feel like something's happening there. Like, I don't believe it. I feel like I keep on checking the comment, like the replies for like someone to blow

the cover off this and reveal that it's actually a hoax. But as it is, it's got, this thing just happened today. It's got 2.4 million views. Is this the most viral pitch gif ever? Or is Oliver Drake's not actually that impressive splitter that neil degrasse tyson declared was physically impossible even though it was just his normal split right is that still higher do you think i don't know if that that got aggregated a lot i don't know if this one did but this is yeah i'm watching it right now so that's incredible

yeah it's and it's really i don't know that you even need the overlay, right? It's just the fastball that's so impressive. It is. The overlay aspect of it. Well, first of all, like one huge benefit of this is that this is like with these, the post-season cameras, you know, like the post-season cameras are really good too. I don't know. Am I wrong about that? It doesn't, it don't, doesn't the post-season have like, just, but maybe I'm thinking of

the slow motion swing camera, which did you see, by the way, did you see, uh, Travis Darnot get hit by a pitch in the morning game? He got hit by a pitch on the bicep, biceps on the biceps. And then they went went they showed the slow motion of it hitting his biceps did you see this i missed that dude all right i'm gonna have to send you this uh it's not i don't have it in a gif so i'm just gonna have to send you the whole video because i have not yet made it into a gif what's there a reverberation yeah have you ever seen like flesh rumble i think i have with other hit by pitches. Yeah.

I say this every year. I say this every October ever since, I don't know, what was it, 2014 or so when they really started to use this slow motion camera on the batters. But it is so special. Like what we get to see. The camera work on baseball games on baseball broadcast is amazing. The number of angles they have, uh, the quality of the cameras, the different slow motion speeds.

You could see, you saw, uh, someone Homer, I forget who someone Homer and they show the slow motion and you could see the spin coming in at the bat. And then you could see the spin going out on the home run, which is so cool.

Yeah. Anyway. So I just sent you Travis Darnot video. So partly it's the way that these pitches are in like really crisp definition and are hovering around each other. Like it is these, this is not like the sort of classic tunneling gif where you have two pitches that start in the same place and then they end up six feet away from each other and you're like, well, how do you ever hit that? This is two pitches that are moving away from each other and then abruptly reverse course and then cross back over

and so they form an infinity sign basically in space. Yeah. And so I don't know that the second ball is impressive. Like you're right right the fastball is the one that does the the witchcraft ball is just a curveball i mean it's good exactly the curveball is just a curveball but but it as a companion to this dance i feel like makes it much more i don't know spooky it's spooky and i think that the like there's the the yeah it's the way that they're kind of pivoting around each other and it's beautiful they look like they look like a planet and a moon exactly that's why i was yes exactly they look like celestial spheres yes circling

each other and um i mean this is sci-fi right here yeah yeah but what is that is there is there a frame missing it seems like there really should be or something there's a moment where it hovers where it hovers like the uh like the fake ufo and the brady bunch it just sort of hovers like suspiciously and then like zooms off right yeah it looks because we've been conditioned to think that late break is not so much a thing or it's like like once you throw the ball, it's going to go on a certain trajectory and then someone just tugs it with a string from the dugout or something and it just and it and it moves in two different directions it's like there's something maybe three yeah like there is there is definitely a point where it feels like it has stopped moving yeah in any direction that it was going or that it is going and it for a moment it is in like this middle act yeah so it's so weird so i'm gonna see if he tweeted one without the overlay to see if

it's as good but it's gonna be hard 2.5 million views now it's got 100 000 views in the last that was me. Well, yeah. So anyway, Charlie Morton's good. I'm glad that the Rays didn't get swept because they're too good a team to get swept. And also, as good as the Astros are, they're not so good that a team as good as the Rays can't compete with them. And if the Astros had swept them, then we all would have been falling over ourselves to say the Astros are unbeatable. And maybe they are. Maybe they won't be beaten in a series.

But they certainly can be beaten in a game by a team as good as the Rays. And this was really the one game where they had the starting pitcher advantage, which sounds incredible given the starting pitchers that they have in the series, but the ones they were going up against, it's hard to imagine feeling relief knowing that Zach Greinke is going to be starting, but they must have just to get a guy who's throwing 90 instead of throwing his change-ups 90, and that obviously wasn't great Greinke. And he threw like about as many pitches as he had words in his press conference, I think, the day before, which I couldn't decide whether I liked that or not, whether I found that endearing or off-putting. I have no idea what you're talking about. at Grinky's pre-start press conference where he said like 43 words total or something. And every question he was asked, it was like two words or a single sentence. And he was just like, I haven't really thought about that or something like that.

And it was kind of like, oh, this is typical Grinky being Grinky. And I was sort of divided because I love Grinky stories and I love cranky kind of being different. But also if this were anyone but cranky, I would have said, well, this is sort of rude. Not that you're obligated to answer writers with really long answers, but you know, everyone's just trying to do their job. give people somewhat well thought out answers if they're not badgering you or hounding you or anything it's kind of part of the job and he sort of skipped it but i don't know i love grinky and usually love the grinky stories i was just trying to imagine what i would have thought if this were anyone other than grinky and probably wouldn't have had such a positive impression but he didn't last so long and that was that and the rays have played well like i thought they played pretty well even in the first couple games when they seemed to sort of have no chance against colin verlander like they pitch pretty well they hung in there with those guys

it was just dominant pitching performances and so they broke out in this one and now we will see if they can beat those guys for the first time which is a tall order if you'd had to obviously we know there's going to be two game fives there might be a third one so um but if you had if you could have only had one of these series go five which would you have picked which game five would you most have wanted to see and maybe maybe it's hard to answer that question having lived through the games that have been played and that have sort of set the arcs for each of these series. So maybe you could answer it however you want.

Maybe you could just tell me which game five you think is like the greatest gift of these, presuming in this hypothetical that the Rays and Astros were also to go to game five yeah i'd probably say well i guess nats dodgers that's pretty tough to beat right beeler strasburg that's with kershaw and and the nat starters ready to go in relief like yeah right now that's the one i'm probably most excited for. So I don't know that I would have said that coming into the series, except that those were two of the teams with two of the, what, three best starting rotations in baseball.

And so you knew that if those series went deep, it would be a matchup like this. So maybe I would have picked that. I don't know. Yeah, I think I would have picked the Dodgers and the Nationals. It's, yeah, Yeah, probably that, just knowing that you're going to get probably four of these great starters pitching in or else being available in the bullpen. Did you know that Garrett Cole had 29 swinging strikes? No, he had 33, I believe. Well, not on baseball reference.

So I think some sites count foul tips And others do not ESPN had him at 33 And that was a record for him That was a postseason record In the pitch tracking era And it was too short Of the regular season record

In the pitch tracking era So yeah it was just He was like toying with people It was like when they didn't swing he could paint the corners and when they did swing they just swung through it it was like i mentioned this in my recap post but it was like there was one period where i think it was like 11 whiffs and 16 pitches or something like that it was just just constant and a lot of pitches that looked sort of hittable like they were in the strike zone and the race just kept whiffing and whiffing and then

all of a sudden he would drop in a slider or a knuckle curve below the zone and they did a decent job of holding up i thought but it's just easier said than done obviously not to swing at those pitches when he's throwing 100 and then mixing in 90 mile per hour change-ups and 80 something sliders and it was just nasty yeah so anyway so to answer my question I the Dodgers and the Nationals would have been my pre-series pick and it might it might still be probably still However, knowing that Garrett Cole would start a game five and having just watched that outing and, you know, I mean, Garrett Cole right now is, he might be the best pitcher in the world.

You never know when a pitcher is going to reach that level and just stay there for seven years as Kershaw did once and as Scherzer did once. And so maybe this is it. Maybe this is like he has reached that level and now he's going to be here for seven years. And this is his, you know, this is a deciding game. Of course, it's a division series game.

And so maybe it's not. Maybe it's not the start I'm going to end up remembering, regardless, now that I think about it. You could have a better one in the next couple of weeks. Yeah, so all right. So maybe not in Colt. But there's a part of me that wants to say cardinals braves just because i think the best ongoing storyline in any of these series

is carlos martinez against ronald acuna yeah so gestures at each other yeah exactly so game game one i think it was game one acuna homers off martineers off Martinez. Martinez gets mad at how Acuna trots, and the beef has begun. And then game three, I guess, Carlos Martinez, so he saved that game. Then game three, Carlos Martinez blows the lead, and then the next batter he faces is Acuna. the lead and then the next batter he faces is Acuna his first pitch is is up and in and it almost it almost looked like that one maybe was a purpose pitch and then he pitches him normal for the rest of the at bat and then the last pitch is also up and in even more up and in and Acuna shoots him a glance and then Martinez just like walks straight to him like he's just getting a new ball I mean he's not gonna fight or anything he's just getting a new ball i mean he's not gonna fight or anything

he's just getting a new ball sure um and they end up getting like very close to each other and then acuna leads off the ninth inning uh in a tie game in game four and leads off with a double and is uh is hyped uh and then martinez strands him and so i um but he blew a kiss at him i think oh i didn't see the blown kiss. I saw a gif where Acuna was on second and Martinez turned around and was like holding him. And he made like a lip smacking thing with his face. And then there was another one. I forget what it was, but I think Acuna did like a slit throat thing.

Yeah, I did see that. And I wondered whether that was something that he i wondered whether that was uh whether that was something that he does or whether that was directed at martinez yeah it was like uh it was the last out it was when the the last out was recorded right no there could have been a last out i think it was right because martinez hasn't gotten a kunya out since that oh it was the last out of game three it was the last out of game three yeah right so the last out of game three Acuna caught it and ended the game and then he sort of did like a like a like that's a wrap kind of thing or like a slit your throat kind of thing which are basically the same move and uh and I

just assumed at the time I I did wonder whether that was a a thing about Martinez and the Cardinals or if that was just like a thing he does at the end of the game to say that's a wrap. But anyway, if this was Ronald Acuna against some teams, seventh inning pitcher, that would not elevate it to game five iconic status, but the possibility that the series could come down to the bottom of the

ninth with Martinez, almost certainly on the mound, although maybe not anymore, but probably on the mound and maybe Acuna coming up. That might be the game five moment that I'm more eager to see even then say Scherzer jogging in from the bullpen or Kershaw jogging in from the bullpen yeah all right so we've vamped long enough we have a final the twins are done 5-1 Yankees Yankees sweep the Twins. And final numbers so far, reliever ERA down to 5.18, and batting average with runners in scoring position, 185.

And more importantly, Twins eliminated their postseason losing streak up to, what, 16 now. And we will have to read a whole lot of articles about how they can't beat the Yankees. And it's unfortunate in a sense in that the Twins were one of the best stories of this season, as were the Yankees, I think, in a way. But the Twins were a good team. Their offense didn't really show up in this series, but was every bit the equal of the Yankees during the regular season, I think. Granted, the Yankees had a lot of injuries. The Twins are not at full strength right now either. They're missing Buxton and Pineda, and they have some sort of shorthanded spots. So if they had met up at some other time in the season, maybe this would have gone differently. But it just looked like the Yankees kind of outclassed them at this particular time.

And now they can go back and lick their wounds yet again and hope never to have to face the Yankees in the playoffs again. Yeah. The truth is that all season long, the twins pitching stats were pretty good. And all along I had in my head that like head that their staff wasn't that good. And then I would constantly look and go, oh, wow, no, they are. And then a week would pass and the same exact thing would happen. And so after 26 hard weeks, I get to declare victory. Yeah. And Aaron Boone, I thought, managed pretty well in this series.

He was certainly very aggressive like he always had someone up in the pen like the second anyone started struggling he was like even more aggressive than I thought he'd be like in game three he brought in Adovino again in the fifth inning for one batter

and Adovino walked that batter which was a replay of what had happened in a previous game but he's just going through relievers in early innings and and pulling them and playing matchups he just seems very determined not to make what seemed to be mistakes last postseason when he had sort of slow hooks against Boston and was criticized for that after the series. He appears to have gone fully in the other direction, as he said he would. And yeah, it just seems like the Twins' pitching depth right now is not great. They just didn't have a lot of guys who gave you a lot of confidence.

Like Taylor Rodgers pitched in two games in this series but hadn't really seen much time until game three when he threw a couple innings and gave up a run. And it just, yeah, it looked like maybe Baldelli wasn't quite as aggressive with getting his best pitchers in at the right times. But even when he was, those pitchers didn't always deliver. And the Yankees bats just did like they're sort of the exception to what i've been saying about hitting with runners in scoring position the yankees are like the one team that actually has hit well with runners in scoring position so far and not coincidentally they're the one that swept yeah it's uh i mean yeah they deserve better not i i don't mean in this series, I mean this season. It's just bad luck to win 101 games and be the fourth best team in baseball. Most teams who win 101 games just get better than that. So I feel bad for the Twins. I don't know if I expect them to be back at this level next year or not. So I'm going to have to spend the offseason thinking about that.

But certainly they had a good season. And I don't know, they probably are going to be really bummed out today. But I think that if you were ranking seasons by success, as I do every year and as I'm sure I will do early in October, I would guess that the Twins are going to end up like fourth or fifth. Just as far as like success, feeling of success, feeling of accomplishment, feeling that whatever goals you set out for at the beginning of the year for your team, you surpassed them and that you ended up in a better place than you began

and that the future looks bright and the present looks good and the recent past was good too. So a good season for the Twins. Nothing to be ashamed of. Weird, irrelevant sort of fun fact that they've lost all those postseason games in a row that will hang over them and be brought up constantly in a way that I'm sure Billy Bean will relate to. And that's a bummer. But of course, these are all new players.'s all new front office all new uniform staff nothing that happened in 2005 like every time someone cites that stat they'll say like of course it's it's different players and this can't be affecting this team and yet we keep citing it over and over again which even though no one really thinks it means anything or like

there's any greater chance that this team will be bad in the postseason because previous incarnations of this team have been bad in the postseason but it's unavoidable i guess when you get this sort of run of non-success and particularly with so much of it coming against one team yeah do you think they'll be back well Well, consider the division, I guess, right? So maybe the White Sox are turning a corner, but certainly the Tigers and the Royals are not there yet. And Cleveland, I have no idea whether they will attempt to restock that team or spend anything on that team.

So the competition's not great, and the Twins have a lot of good homegrown guys, and it seems like they did a good job with player development this year. So if I had to pick an AL Central favorite for next season right now, I guess I'd probably pick the Twins. Good. Yeah. And the home run tallies in this series,

because, of course, we thought this was going to be the series of the dinger, and I guess the Yankees hit five and the Twins hit four, and that's not a ton for two, three games between the two top home run hitting teams. came in trailing the Twins by one home run on the season, I guess they finished the series tied with home runs. Although, of course, the Yankees will now get to go on and hit more home runs. So that's that. And yeah, this was not the best showcase for this Twins team, which was a very good team and a very good story. But the Yankees move on and we'll face a really tough team next. So, I mean, if we do get, well, I don't know, it's too soon to say anything, but a Yankees Astros series would be pretty compelling, but I'd enjoy Yankees race too. Yeah, I would too. I would, I would, I would rather see the Astros face the Dodgers, I think, than any other team face the Dodgers. Yes, me too.

But I don't know that I prefer to see the Astros face the Yankees to the Rays face the Yankees. Uh-huh. Like there's something charming about that series. And so either one, either way will be good. Yep. All right. So I guess that will be that. And we'll talk again maybe after the game fives, probably.

Yeah. When do they happen? Wednesday. Wednesday evening, night. So yeah, we'll have to do that. So there's one game tomorrow. There's one game Tuesday. Yep. Two games on Wednesday and potentially one game on Thursday. Yep. All right. Sounds good. I'll call you and find out who won. Okay. All right. That will do it for today. Thanks for listening. I should note, by the way,

that the team with the best batting average with runners in scoring position is actually the Rays. The Rays are at 357 to the Yankees' 324, and then it's like 100 points to the next team down. But the Rays at 357 have had fewer than half as many at-bats with runners in scoring position as the Yankees have. Of course, the Rays didn't get a runner in scoring position against Verlander or Cole until I think the second-to-last batter Cole faced. That was how thoroughly they suppressed Tampa Bay's offense in those games. You can support the podcast on Patreon by going to patreon.com slash effectivelywild. The following five listeners have already pledged their support,

signed up to donate some small monthly amount to help keep the podcast going and get themselves access to some perks. Ken Hui, Daniel Bach, John Neeson, Alex Kapuscinskas, and Angus Kellett. Thanks to all of you. As I've mentioned, we'll be doing a couple of playoff live streams for Patreon supporters at the $10 level and above. Those will probably be during the Championship Series, maybe the World Series too, but you will get a notification on Patreon if you are one of those supporters by then,

and I'll note it here too when we figure out which days that will be. You can join our Facebook group by going to facebook.com slash groups slash Effectively Wild. There are active game threads for every game in the playoffs. It's a fun place to be. Join in the fun. You can rate, review, and subscribe to Effectively Wild on iTunes and other podcast platforms. You can email us at podcast at fangraphs.com. And you can also message us your comments and questions via the Patreon site if you are a supporter.

Thanks to Dylan Higgins for his editing assistance. via the Patreon site if you are a supporter. Thanks to Dylan Higgins for his editing assistance. You can buy my book, The MVP Machine, How Baseball's New Nonconformists Are Using Data to Build Better Players. Your ratings and reviews for the book are appreciated as well. And as noted, we will be back a little later this week

to answer some emails and discuss the playoff action in the intervening days. Talk to you then. Oh, the right move Haven't you heard Haven't you heard That we're all done for Done for Oh