Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 1609: Game, Set, Mask

Episode Date: October 29, 2020

Ben Lindbergh and Sam Miller discuss Justin Turner’s positive COVID test, his unsafe decision to return to the field after World Series Game 6, and why his protocol-breaking behavior cast a pall over the World Series celebration, then examine the series’ significance to the legacies of the Dodgers and Clayton Kershaw, why the Dodgers were […]

We can go on, that gym of things, breaking the rules of the game. Hello and welcome to episode 1609 of Effectively Wild, a baseball podcast from Fangraphs presented by our Patreon supporters. I am Ben Lindberg of The Ringer, joined by Seth Miller of ESPN. Hello, Sam. Hello. Season is over. World Series is over. We made it, but with mixed emotions to the very end. So we will be talking about the strategies and the legacies and all of that. But unless you have anything else you want to start with,

we should begin by talking about the way it ended or what happened after it ended. Or just before it ended, actually. Well, yeah, that's true. It spanned the last few innings, although I guess the public didn't really know about it until the immediate aftermath, or at least we had some sense of what was happening. But it was a developing situation. It's still sort of a developing situation as we record here on Wednesday afternoon.

So we're talking about Justin Turner's positive test and his subsequent actions after the game. So here's what happened. Justin Turner was replaced in the eighth inning of World Series Game 6, and we learned later on that this was because he had tested positive for COVID-19. So during the second inning, MLB learned that he had had an inconclusive test that was taken on Monday. And so they expedited the processing of a pending test that had been taken earlier on Tuesday. And that came back positive. And in the seventh inning, the Dodgers were told to remove him from the game. He didn't come back out for the eighth. The Dodgers were told to remove him from the game. He didn't come back out for the eighth. And after the game, he initially isolated. Seems like he was taken somewhere. He tweeted about feeling okay and not having symptoms and being sorry that he wasn't out there. And then before we knew it, he was out there. He was extremely out there. He was all over, and he was in the team photo, and he was palling around with players and teammates and coaches. He was not wearing his mask much of the time. He was making a lot of

physical contact, not just with his wife, but with teammates, and Dave Roberts and Andrew Friedman are right next to him, and no one's wearing masks. And it's a really messy situation and a shameful situation, I think, in more than one way. It's a shame in the sense that we're talking about this instead of the Dodgers winning. And I think the celebration, the aftermath of that win, that long-awaited and well-deserved win, was really overshadowed in a big way by what Turner did. It was very difficult to take any pleasure, I think, in watching those proceedings because there was such a deep discomfort, I think, for many people who were watching this knowing that Turner had tested positive, that he was well aware he had tested positive, that seemingly his teammates were mostly aware that he had tested positive,

and yet he was just very blithely going about the business of celebrating with no real precautions taken at all. And there has been an MLB statement about this that was released on Wednesday. Immediately upon receiving notice from the laboratory of a positive test, protocols were triggered, leading to the removal of Justin Turner from last night's game. Turner was placed into isolation for the safety of those around him. However, following the Dodgers' victory, it is clear that Turner chose to disregard the agreed upon joint protocols and the instructions he was given regarding the safety and protection of

others. While a desire to celebrate is understandable, Turner's decision to leave isolation and enter the field was wrong and put everyone he came in contact with at risk. When MLB security raised the matter of being on the field with Turner, he emphatically refused to comply. The commissioner's office is beginning a full investigation into this matter and will consult with the Players Association within the parameters of the joint 2020 operations manual and the dodgers have subsequently had tests conducted and we haven't really heard the results or the further fallout from this but it was a shame and and shameful and i think has uh rightly dominated much of the conversation about the game in the series in the 24 hours or so

since it ended. Do you think the protocols, I don't suspect that they would have, I don't know, would the protocols have said that they should have halted the game? Is it conceivable that they could have halted the game once they realized he had the positive test? Yeah, I don't know exactly what they should have done here. Because they would not play the next day, right? If a positive test on one of the teams happens, the precedent through the season had been that a game or two at least gets canceled while the testing gets done. Right.

So if you cancel the next day's game, is there any reason that you wouldn't halt the game that you're in? Aside from the fact that it's game six of the World Series and they don't want to. I'm more just thinking like the potential for chaos in this whole situation was even greater than what happened. Yeah, so I think there was a somewhat similar situation to this with the Reds in August where a player of theirs

found out about a test during the game and was sort of just like pulled out of the handshake line. I don't think the game was stopped, but maybe it was closer to ending. There was also a Marlins-Orioles game in August where first pitch was postponed for 40 minutes because some of the Marlins had inconclusive results and had to be retested. So they were sent back to their hotel rooms. So it seems like MLB was taking those things seriously then. Maybe the protocols changed for the postseason because of the setup, although I wasn't aware of that. I was reading the LA Times article about this, which quotes epidemiologist Zach Binney, who was on the show. And he said that inconclusive tests aren't uncommon. And so at that point, when they knew that he had had an inconclusive test,

Zach said that he doesn't think MLB should have ordered that he be removed or that play be halted. He says, I think it was fair to assume that inconclusive was more likely to come back negative than positive because the players and staff had been in a bubble, which so far had not resulted in any cases. And of course, this is not a complete bubble, but it is still something of a mystery how Turner contracted this because he was, or at least was supposed to be, associating with the same people and only going from the hotel to the field. Binney continued, he said that the league was okay, was within what it should have done by ordering him into isolation without stopping play. So he says they were unlikely to continue to spread it that much by finishing that game,

certainly from the Dodgers to the Rays. You would expect that any transmission from Turner to other people in the organization had happened both recently and already, so that playing the rest of the game arguably would not result in more spread among the Dodgers. I guess that's debatable, but it seems as though MLB didn't tell them to stop the game. MLB didn't take any steps to stop the game. They just said, remove Turner. And I don't know, at that point when the players are on the field, it doesn't seem like a lot of the transmission or any of the transmission that we know of has happened on the field. So it's one

of those situations that I guess the protocols are in some sense designed for but also very much not designed for like you have protocols so that you don't have to make really difficult decisions in the late innings of game six of the world series and you shouldn't take any pressures like that into account in theory. It shouldn't matter if it's a meaningless game or the most meaningful game. But I guess given the surroundings and the quasi-bubble and the fact that they're outdoors playing a baseball game, maybe it wasn't the worst to continue, but maybe opinions would vary on that. Yeah, one of the weird things about discussing all this and also, you know, at a higher level of policy being made about all this is that the discussion is all, you know, for the most part, it's baseball fans who are interested in baseball are debating whether a baseball game should be played or under what circumstances it should be played and whether the baseball players did something wise. But we're all like we're all totally compromised in in all of these discussions because we like baseball and like when scott boris wrote that op-ed in spring saying that

yeah america needed baseball it's like i mean if if if america needs baseball somebody would be writing that op-ed who doesn't like baseball and doesn't make a lot of money from baseball and bad who doesn't like baseball and doesn't make a lot of money from baseball and doesn't go to 500 baseball games a year like if america the larger entity needs baseball then lots of people who aren't baseball fans would also recognize that and be clamoring for baseball but instead it's mostly baseball fans who are saying it and and on the flip side it because it's baseball fans who are paying attention it's mostly probably baseball fans who are critical of this stuff too but like when they made the decision to allow fans into the lcs and the world series i mentioned this to my non-baseball fan wife and she just looked at me like i just said the like just the the worst idea ever like it didn't like it didn't make any sense

to her at all and i realized that i had to kind of start thinking about all these things as though rather than baseball, instead of thinking about them as baseball issues, I think of them as Dane Cook concert tour. So if you imagine that Dane Cook, say in June, had announced that he was going to do a nationwide tour, but I don't know, maybe only in drive-ins or like people would be in cars or something. How would I feel about that? And then if Dane Cook was going to start having arena shows that were only a quarter capacity, how would I feel about that?

And if Dane Cook was in the middle of a show and found out that he had tested positive for COVID while he's a few feet away from some fans. How would I feel about that? And it helps crystallize it a little bit to think about it as a thing that you don't actually care to have exist. You don't care that it does exist. I'm not too hostile toward the notion of Dane Cook performing, but I don't need Dane Cook to be out. Like it doesn't, I don't,'t i'm not really that's not my scene

and so the equivalent here i think would be like if if maybe if dane cook had had like finished filming like maybe a sequel to dan in real life and then the crew got together for the premiere and it was maybe an outdoor premiere of dan in real life too, and he got tested positive, would I expect him to still go to that premiere? Because it meant a lot for him to be around those people and to have created this thing. And I think the answer is that he would have to sit it out. In my opinion, Dane Cook shouldn't go to that. So anyway, I get that it meant a lot to Justin Turner, but this doesn't feel like a hard one. And I only bring that up because I know that it meant a lot to Justin Turner, but this doesn't feel like a hard one. And I only bring that up because I know that there are a lot of people who probably are sick of hearing,

like the scolding, the worrying, the sense that there should be less baseball, I think is probably an unwelcome message to a lot of people. And I just think that it helps to think of it as not baseball, but as something that 90% of the country doesn't consume, but that could potentially be exposing 100% of the country doesn't consume, but that could potentially be exposing 100% of the country to this disease. Right. Yeah. And of course, I understand why Turner wanted to be out there.

This was his sixth trip to the postseason. They've had these heartbreaking losses. They finally win. He's a major contributor to that effort. Of course, he wants to be celebrating with his teammates. And of course, they want to be celebrating with him. Although I have to wonder whether some of them had more misgivings about his presence there

than they let on, you know, because of his status with the team. And he's a leader and he's clutch and he's Justin Turner, all of that. You know, I don't know if every player is going to step up and stand up and say, hey, get out of here, you know, we don't know if every player is going to step up and stand up and say, hey, get out of here, you know, we'll celebrate later or something.

It's one of those team dynamic things that maybe people feel a lot of pressure not to do that. But regardless, I mean, based on at least their public comments, it seems like most of the Dodgers kind of wanted him there too and understood why he wanted to be there. But this whole year has been a sequence of events that we all want to do and don't do. And we've all had things that we wanted to celebrate and people we wanted to see and hopefully refrained from doing that. And whether it's a happy occasion, a sad occasion, we've all sort of deprived ourselves of that, or collectively we have. And this is a time when, of course, cases are rising all over the country. A lot of areas

are backsliding. It seems like whatever meager progress was made, a lot is being lost as people are letting their guard down. And this whole situation just seems very emblematic of really the larger problems, just sort of an absence of leadership and a selfish person, or at least a person acting selfishly, just deciding to go against the rules and the guidelines that have been laid down because they found them distasteful or inconvenient. And so it's not entirely clear what the confrontation was like. In Ken Rosenthal's article in The Athletic, he said, league officials, league security personnel, and some Dodgers officials spoke with Turner, asking him to remain in isolation, according to a source with knowledge of the situation. Turner, however, was adamant about wanting to join the celebration, the source said, Turner, however, was adamant about wanting to join the celebration, the source said, and he had the support of at least some club officials. So obviously it's mostly on Turner for doing this or largely on Turner for doing this. I don't know where the blame breaks down when it comes to Dodgers teammates and officials not letting him do this.

MLB security people not letting him do this. not letting him do this, MLB security people not letting him do this, you know, should they have physically restrained him? Were there people with the protective equipment to do that? It's sort of tough to say without having been in the room when that was happening, but someone had to do something. So it was probably kind of one of those cascading failures where no one wants to get in Justin Turner's way and say, hey, go away. It sucks that this happened at this moment when we've come so far, but that's the way it is. Yeah. You think it affects next season at all? I mean, every, I think next season is also just as this season was at the beginning. It's, you're asking people to have faith in you as a league and as a bunch of teams.

And this makes it easier to say, well, look, there's just too much that you can't control or that you're not going to control for us to trust that you get through another whole season. On the other hand, maybe the lesson from this year and from not just Major League Baseball, but from other leagues and from college athletic conferences as well is that they can just do what they want.

And then there really isn't a way for the public to restrain or hold them accountable in this particular climate. And the protocols were designed to get the season in, right, to complete the season. And they did that. And then it's almost like having done that like rob manfred said earlier in the year that what he would consider a successful season if he's there at the end handing the trophy to some lucky owner and he got to do that right so in a way these things weren't designed with you know post world series celebration in mind how do we stop

someone who tested positive in the middle of a world series game from coming back onto the field at that point maybe rob minford's thinking we made it mission accomplished you know i'm not gonna get in this guy's way but because this has happened it has become one of the biggest stories from this world series and it's just hard to feel great about this. If you're a Dodgers fan, I'm not saying that you should not enjoy that your team just ended a 32-year World Series drought because of the actions of the third baseman and, to some extent, the rest of the team, too. But I think for a lot of neutral observers who otherwise would be saying, hey, good job, Dodgers. You deserved it. You finally broke through. You answered all the questions. You silenced all the doubters.

And instead, we're watching Justin Turner, who just tested positive, just parade around the field with impunity. So it's one of those things that's fitting in a sense. It's like the season started with a positive test. It ended with a positive test. I think you said it at some point on the podcast this season. I think probably we all said, like, in some ways we were happy to have baseball back, and it was some source of comfort, at least for us, you know, the people who are deeply invested in baseball. And in many ways, the worst-case scenarios didn't come to pass, at least as far as we know. And they got the season in and it certainly looked like they weren't going to do that at times. And they managed to get the whole postseason in without a hitch until the final few innings. And I think there would have been a lot to feel positive about. this happening right at the end there just really did remind you as Juan Soto testing positive on opening day or the Marlins or the Cardinals having their outbreaks reminded us like you know every

time you just forgot about what was happening and said hey baseball there would be some reminder whether it was a player testing positive or opting out or even just remembering that there are no fans whatever it was like there was no forgetting, whatever it was, like there was no forgetting about what was happening, even if it was a welcome diversion at times. All right. So we'll see whether there is discipline. You know, I don't know what the discipline could be here, a fine, a suspension, whatever it is, Turner will probably have baked that into his decision here to go back out into the field. And I think the fact that the Game 7 scenario was averted is probably a positive because there's really no good way that that could have come out.

Zach Binney talking to the LA Times said, Careful contact tracing would have shown how many players had been in close contact with Turner and the league would then have had to choose between quarantining those players or postponing the game. I don't think the game would have necessarily had to be canceled, he said, but they would have had to do something very disruptive. And really, if they had followed the regular season precedent, I think they probably would have had to put it on hold. And best case scenario, you're playing a decisive game without one of the team's best players, unless you're delaying the World Series for days or weeks. So I think the fact that that was avoided is a silver lining, but this was just kind of cast a pall over the proceedings. So other than that, it's kind of a other than that Mrs. Lincoln type of situation, but the game itself was a good game. The Dodgers just convincingly demonstrated that they are the best team in baseball, that they deserve this, and that it was only a matter of time until this would happen. And, you know, I got an email from my mom right after the game to say something like, you know, does this count? Is the 60-game season legitimate? I think she used the word asterisk. So I assume based on just my mom's reaction that this is something that a non-deeply

invested baseball observer might think about this season. But I don't know how you could really have been following this season and this team without thinking that this is a legitimate title. You said it coming into the season that if good teams made the playoffs and the Dodgers end up playing a good team in the World Series, then we would not have to have that conversation. And I am briefly having it here just to dismiss it really, because I don't think I in the future will even consider that really when it comes to the Dodgers title. A lot of things about this season and stats of individual players and the league as a whole absolutely have all kinds of caveats and the rules and the experiments and the

absences and all the rest of it. But when it comes to the Dodgers, they were the best team. They were expected to be the best team. They played an excellent team. Both of those teams would have been in the playoffs in a normal year. And if anything, everything about their road to the title once they got to the playoffs was more difficult because of the extra round, the extra competition, the lack of home field advantage in the last couple of rounds in the Dodgers case. So they earned this. I don't think Dodgers fans, other than the Turner debacle, have to feel any negativity really about the fact that this was the year when they ended the drought.

No, absolutely none. If there's anything that a person could, if they want to be extremely picky to say that this is slightly less of a, I don't know, of a challenge or real or whatever, it would just be to note that the Dodgers basically have the exact same team right now that they had on opening day. Like nobody got hurt the entire time. I mean, some people got hurt briefly, but like their, their post-season roster was their opening day roster. They stayed healthy, you know, more or less throughout. So they didn't have to go through the grind of a hundred and, you know, 85 or whatever games it would normally be in which you might lose some of your players. And if you think that that is like part of the skill of baseball or part of like one of the obstacles that you have to vanquish uh that it is designed in in that way then you might say that they they got a pass on

that bit of kind of challenge and and bad luck but that's that would be dumb yeah they they were incredible i mean they they were i mean i don't need to see any more of this team. This is like one of the, this is clearly one of the three best teams of my, of my lifetime. Do you mean like during this run or this year specifically? I mean, I don't, I would say I don't really necessarily split those two things entirely. I can't, I can't split them in my head. So I don't mean the eight-year run but i mean the team now i guess i sort of think of it as like how you calculate park factors where it's this year uh plus a couple years before plus a couple years after to really get a sense of what

the true park factor is so if you're talking about talent i'm thinking i i mean like the dodgers this year uh plus what i know to be factual about them based on the last couple years, and then presumably what's going to happen in the next couple years. They are right there with the late 90s Yankees. They're right there with the 17, 18, 19 Astros. And they are plausibly right there with any team in the last hundred years. I mean, you can have different ways of doing that math, but this is an extremely deserving team. And what had eluded them up to this point was only postseason success. And the postseason, as you just said, was essentially exactly the same as it always is, except for harder. And so, yeah, nothing but plaudits for the Dodgers.

100% asterisk free. And it's a shame that anybody feels the need to ask that. Right. I will tell my mom she should be ashamed. Tell her Mariano Rivera was steady as they go. Yeah, I still have not convinced her of that, I don't think. While we're on it, though, I just would like to do a quick little stat blast, too. Okay.

They'll take a data set sorted by something like ERA- or OBS+. And then they'll tease out some interesting tidbit, discuss it at length, and analyze it for us in amazing ways. Here's to Deistoplast. I think that there's a little bit more of a question about the Rays, who were great. They were fantastic. But you might draw some asterisk. You might.

You might, if you were ungenerous, draw some asterisk around, you know, around whether they are actually as good as they looked this year. Because for them, it was a shorter season. They don't have a history of winning two thirds of their games over the last five years. But I was curious when they won game four and pushed this to a minimum of six games. I thought that is an accomplishment. Pushing these Dodgers to six games is not nothing because these Dodgers, as I said, are one of the greatest teams I've ever seen and could have swept many, many, many World Series opponents in many World Series. And so they pushed them to six.

And so then I got to thinking, who are the best World Series losers ever? And at this point, I didn't know if it was going to be the Rays or the Dodgers who would be the losers. So I included each of them. But I created a big spreadsheet of every World Series loser in 117, I think, World Series. every World Series loser in 117, I think, World Series. And I have their regular season performance, their opponents, their World Series opponents' regular season performance, and then their run differential in the World Series as a way of showing just how well they played in the World Series

beyond wins and losses. Their, what I called their World Series OPS+, which is basically their OPS as a really as a ratio of the OPS they allowed to their opponent in the World Series as a way of showing even in more detail how well they played, and then how many games they took from their opponent. And I basically made it like I waited at one third for their own regular season winning percentage, one third for their quality of their opponent, and then one third for how well they did in the World Series in wins,

run differential, and in just basic offensive and defensive performance. And I wanted to see who the best World Series losers are. And if it had been the Dodgers, they would have been like a top three worlds but of course they didn't lose i mean the reason that they would do so well is because they fare very well in in world series pythagorean record and uh world series ops plus because they outplayed their opponent but as it was the raise out of 117 teams they finished 20, which is quite high. 19th is the 1906 Cubs, who famously won 116 games in a 154-game schedule and have the greatest record of all time. But the 1906 Cubs faced a considerably worse World Series opponent. They lost to that World Series opponent,

and they got out-hit and outscored by the World Series opponent. So the Rays are very good, though. Top 20 World Series losers ever, according to this. The number one, no matter how many times I tried to fudge this formula to make it slightly better, it was always basically the 1912 New York Giants at the top. The 1912 New York Giants are, that's the team of Snodgrass Muff. That is one of my favorite World Series.

They were a 682 winning percentage in the regular season. They were facing the Red Sox who had a 691 regular season winning percentage. The Giants out hit the Red Sox in that series. They took them not even to seven. They took them to eight because there was a tie in the middle of it. And game seven is one of the greatest game sevens of all time. And until the 1960s, game seven had the highest championship win probability added event in World Series history.

So that's a great series. And so the 1912 New York Giants are a great losing team. Number two is the 1931 Philadelphia Athletics. That's another World Series I love. It was them and the St. Louis Cardinals in a rematch. And I have said that that is maybe my sleeper pick for the best two-team World Series matchup. If you're picking the two best teams as an average,

I think those two teams were just, were so good. And they were doing a rematch from the previous year. And so the A's had won the year before and then the Cardinals won that year. And then you have the 1960 Yankees who famously lost to Mazeroski, but had won three blowouts. And so they actually had a Pythagorean record, a run differential suggestive of a team that would win 80% of their games during that World Series. But they, of course, only won three out of seven.

So those are like the three at the top. And then you have the Rays. And so I think it's a little bit less clear that the Rays are actually that good or were that good because their 667 winning percentage probably would have regressed a bit over a full season and even the Dodgers 717 winning percentage probably would have regressed over a little bit uh but they uh they I mean if you just think about what they did this year they uh were the best team in the American League uh clearly they they walloped the Yankees in the division they then beat there were three super teams coming into the year, three teams that everybody thought were like head and shoulders above everybody else.

They beat the Yankees, they beat the Astros, and then they had to face the Dodgers and they took them to six. So good season, very good season. Better, honestly, to be honest, better than I thought that they were capable of. Yeah. and they never really felt out of games with the exception, I guess, of game one. They always felt like they were a threat that they could still come back if they weren't winning. And I guess they got out hit by about 150 points of OPS. So the Dodgers had a pretty commanding offensive lead in the series, and the Dodgers had a better lineup. I think coming into it, it was pretty clear that that was where the big advantage was. The Dodgers just had this lineup that is full of superstars. But on the whole, it's a decent lineup. It's an above average lineup, but the Dodgers are like an all-time great lineup. And that showed. And, you know, it's tough to win a World Series, I guess, when only a few of your players really

hit well, despite Randy Rosarena's best efforts, even up until game six, when he out-total-based the rest of the team, which just, I mean, one of the all-time great postseason performances from him, both because of the quality and the quantity, because they played a bunch of games. And every time you thought, okay, he's cooling down a little. They figured him out. He would then just hit a bunch more homers. And he ends up at 377, 442, 831 with 10 homers in 86 plate appearances. Just really an unbelievable all-time great run for him. So, yeah, the Rays did not do anything to bring dishonor upon their franchise with their showing here or in the postseason as a whole. And they're a good bet to be back to not, I think, as solid a bet as the Dodgers just because they're the Rays. And unless they're suddenly going to start spending this offseason, they're always going to have a little bit of a narrower path. They're always going to be competing with higher spending teams in their division. More things have to go right, less margin for error.

But they're a really great team, and they have the best farm system in baseball and Wander Franco. And they're going to be good for a while, one would think. So we will probably see them again. So we will probably see them again. But I think the Dodgers, I just, as a neutral party, really, as someone who had no real rooting interest in the Dodgers or any team, I really did get pretty invested in the Dodgers just as characters, as a story, just because we watched them so many times. And I wrote about this and mentioned it briefly in the last episode. But we have so much history with all of these players I've seen them play in the postseason

over and over again I've seen them lose when you're someone who kind of covers the league as a whole or maybe you're someone who doesn't watch the league as a whole you know if you're a fan who focuses on one team maybe until the playoffs and you don't get to know the rest of the league all that well. You know the Dodgers because they're full of Cy Young winners and MVPs and rookies of the year and all the rest, but also because they're always there in October. And when something good would happen for them, when something bad would happen for them, there was always an echo of previous postseason successes or failures. And that really did make them more enjoyable to me. I just, I had sort of an intimate awareness of this team

that I would say I don't have of most teams, you know, that maybe just haven't given me as much reason to watch them over as long a period. And I think that really did enhance my appreciation for some of those players. Like the fact that Clayton Kershaw was the object long a period. And I think that really did enhance my appreciation for some of those players. Like the fact that Clayton Kershaw was the object of this Kershaw narrative that he had these postseason struggles, that he received some legitimate criticisms and some illegitimate

exaggerated criticisms. I think that did deepen my attachment to him and maybe my affection for him. Like, if not for that, if not for the failures on the postseason stage, I don't know that I would have a deep fondness for Clayton Kershaw or that I would be invested in his success. I would recognize and appreciate his greatness, of course, as probably the best pitcher of his generation, but he's not a as probably the best pitcher of his generation, but he's not a particularly cuddly player, I don't think, or personality. Like you can marvel at and admire his drive and his dedication and his seriousness and his work ethic and all of that. But as a non-Dodgers fan, I don't know that I would feel the same sort of affection for

him. I guess that I feel after years of almost feeling obligated to come to his defense against some of the more ridiculous accusations of choking or whatever that were leveled at him. And also just the sympathy I felt for him when he would lose, when the Dodgers would lose. And you see the sad Dodgers dugout shots and the sad Kershaw reactions. And then the anxiety that I would feel

on his behalf. It's just a deeper identification than I feel with the success or failure of most individual players. And so the fact that he pitched so well this postseason, that it's not just that the Dodgers finally won and he got his ring, but that he was a big contributor to that, that he pitched well in two World Series games. He just, he answered it. He ended it, I think. And it's one of those things that when they win one and he had a huge hand in it, I think that just goes away. And, you know, he's going to end up with a higher career postseason ERA than his regular season ERA, but I just don't think anyone will matter anymore. It's not something that will have to be written when he goes into the Hall of Fame and gives his induction speech someday.

No one's going to say, yes, but he didn't do this or that. He won, and he played an important part in it. So I'm satisfied. I am going to argue with your own emotions that only you could possibly have access to. So forgive me for that. But I think you're wrong. I think that you would love him just as much without the struggles. And I think by thinking that you love him because of the struggles, you're actually

putting, you're keeping those struggles as the dominant part of his narrative i think you should let it go in fact you should let it go entirely i think you would love clayton kershaw even if he had four rings by now he's a he seems by all indications we you never know you never know about anybody but he seems like a genuinely good guy. Yeah. Likeable guy, not a, not aggro, not, you know, like, I don't know. He, he wouldn't, he wouldn't pick on you, you know, like that's the main thing. He's intense. He's intense on the mound, but he's not like, I mean, he, he's not, he's not six, seven and scary and he doesn't seem like he bullies anybody and he seems i mean i don't know who knows like like we're this is all like impossible to say but he seems good he seems nice i like him

i think i think you would have liked him even if he had a bunch of rings i mean you know you loved pedro and like i think that just as you loved pedro you would have loved kershaw i think that we like the best pitcher of the generation, especially when he seems nice. And Clayton Kershaw seems nice. He does. Yes, he seems like a good guy from what we can tell. I think with certain players like Pedro, for instance, I think part of my appreciation for him is just that he was so far and above, like his peak is almost, it's like the trout sort of thing where it's Kershaw, kind of disparaging Kershaw's greatness and putting it in context with Pedro's because Pedro's peak is just so unbelievable. So Kershaw was like the best of his era. And I guess you could say that this era is the best of all time. And so therefore he's the best of all time but relative to his peers doesn't stand out

in quite the historic way i think that patriot did that mike trout does for instance and i think even with trout like i would uh i think have a deep affection for trout regardless but probably part of it is the fact that he was at the center of the Miguel Cabrera versus Trout debate when he came up. And it was like, this is our guy and that's their guy, you know, the old school versus new school or whatever. And it seems sort of silly in retrospect. But because of that and also because he has a little bit of the can't win thing. Like with him, it's just not even getting to the postseason. And with Kershaw it was

getting there and losing but there's a little bit of that I think but no you're right I would still like Clayton Kershaw so maybe I shouldn't attribute it so much to that but I'm just I'm happy for him to get that off his back and for Dave Roberts to get it off his back and you can go down the rest of the roster. And I guess I'm feeling a little less happy for Justin Turner right now than I would have thought that I would. I, yeah, I think, yeah, I think that,

I don't know, we'll see how everybody responds to this. But my guess is that Justin Turner will have some deep regrets about that. I don't know. Maybe he won't. I shouldn't say that. Maybe he won't. Maybe he'll dig in.

Maybe he thinks that this was appropriate and he will always feel that way. Yeah, but you're right that it's not just, I think this may be a crucial thing about Dodgers has been not just that they make the playoffs every year, but that they've had quite a bit of roster stability, not just the same two stars same the same stars, but like up and down the roster. And so I might by my count, there are 11 players who are on this team that were also on the 2016 postseason roster. So that's five postseasons with 11 players. That's a lot. That's that's a lot of continuity. And we're talking about people, you know, like at the top of the roster for sure like kershaw and kenley jansen but also kike hernandez and austin barnes who you know i mean how often do you think that you're hanging on to this backup catcher for six years so that he can cat you know he can be the star of game set well game six of a World Series championship. But like Austin Barnes has been around, Chris

Taylor, that was the year that he showed up as nothing. Now he's kind of a star for them and has been around. And Jock Peterson and then of course Turner, whose career has gotten more extraordinary as he's aged. And Seager, who was at his peak

phenom status at that point and he's been through a lot and arias was a 19 year old that year um he's there and alex wood uh i'm cheating by counting alex wood because he left but he came back i mean who would have thought alex wood would be pitching in who would have thought alex wood would be pitching in the clinching game of the Dodgers World Series Championship in 2020 yeah and and then to that cast of characters that we've come to know and admire then they add Mookie Betts to the mix and it's like suddenly they have one of the the most watchable and best players in baseball and that just adds to the entertainment value. And then, you know, he has some postseason struggles, but I think for the most part impressed everyone by contributing in every possible way,

and continued to do that right up until game six when he hits a homer, and he hits a double, and he does good base running again, as he always does, and he wins his second World Series, so you can be happy for him too. So on the pitching side, the Dodgers get seven and a third innings of scoreless relief from six relievers, and all of the scenarios that we were concocting about short rest, they do bring Urias back, and he closes out the game two and a third flawless innings and adds to his impressive postseason credentials. But everyone before that, whether it's Victor Gonzalez, who was great, they all were really impressive or got the job done.

You know, even Pedro Baez gets through an outing unscathed. I think right up until the end, like someone tweeted like, oh, Clayton Kershaw's stretching. He's in the bullpen. And I think everyone was bracing themselves for that. And who knows, maybe if the Dodgers had't subject us to the strain that that would have caused because really only downside there, you know, would have been nice to have Kershaw on the mound at the end as we discussed on our last episode. But this way, Dodgers win. He gets lots of credit. Everyone's happy. No Joe Kelly, no Kenley, to make everyone nervous. Then on the other side of things, you have Kevin Cash and Blake Snell. And until Turner, it looked like that was going to be the big takeaway from this game. And I've written about it. Everyone has opinions. Can I tell you one person who has an opinion? Yes. All right. I'm going to read this tweet. Ray's baseball pulling Snellzilla 4 is what is bad about baseball. There's no stat or chart that can measure the energy he was exuding. You felt the Dodgers click and feel mighty when they polled him.

Granted, you can't depend on a one-run lead against a team that good, but Snell had him. You know who said that? No. Dane Cook! Oh, wow. Full circle. Okay. He is still relevant. Who knew? So this decision was man, I mean, to call it divisive or controversial is probably to overstate the support that it had because I think it was almost unanimous that everyone hated it, not just in a second-guessing way, but in a first-guessing way. first-guessing way. And there are ways in which I hated it too, but probably different ways from what most people did. So in one sense, this was entirely consistent with how cash has operated

throughout the season, throughout the postseason. This is what the Rays do. They didn't deviate from that formula. It got them to this game or helped get them to that game. And they didn't say we're going to throw this out because it's game six of the World Series. And regardless of whether you think Cash made the right call here, I do admire his conviction, I guess, and his courage in sticking to this because I wrote this. I mean, there is no upside to doing that from a reputational perspective. Like if it works, if he comes out and he pulls Blake Snell after 73 pitches in a game where Snell looked incredibly impressive, had not allowed a run, had struck out nine without any walks and had just allowed two singles he

struck out half the hitters he faced he had struck out all the hitters he was about to face multiple times in the game just looked great and so to walk out there and pull that guy like if it works if you get out of it if the reliever comes in and is flawless, no one is really saying, hey, great job, Kevin Cash, you did it, because I think everyone's just assuming Blake Snell is dealing and he's going to continue to deal. It's all downside, because if the reliever comes in and allows anything, really, I mean, if he allows a run, that's more runs than scored on Blake Snell's watch. So anyone who does anything bad is going to look bad by comparison. And Kevin Cash is going to be blamed. So the fact that he went out there knowing that he would wear it if it didn't work, regardless of whether it was right or wrong, I do sort of admire that on a level. Would he have worn it if he had left Snell in and bets hit a first pitch homer i don't think so yeah i mean you think he's fine he's golden no yeah i i don't think anyone would

have criticized him judging by the overwhelming response to the the move that he did make so he comes out he gets snell and and as cash said and as everyone can tell, it was largely a third time through the order thing. He was about to face Mookie Betts for the third time in the game. And yes, he had handled Betts quite well coming into that plate appearance. his career when he faces lineups for the third time, and it's not pretty. He falls off even more than the typical pitcher, or at least he has to this point. So this is how the Rays have handled him. I mean, he has not gone six innings in a start since July of 2019. This is just sort of who he is. This is what they do. This is also very much what they did in game seven of the ALCS when Charlie Morton was pulled after 66 pitches and having cruised through five innings scoreless and with one hit allowed and Kevin Cash comes out and gets him and he puts in Anderson and they get out of it and they go on to win the game. This is what they did in game two of the World Series or you could argue that they

didn't do this and almost paid for it. Snell was pitching a no-hitter through the first four innings, looked great, had struck out eight. Then he comes out for the fifth and didn't get pulled until he got in a jam and he gave up a walk and a homer and another walk and a single. And in that game, at least he had the opportunity to unravel. He showed that he was at least he had the opportunity to unravel, like he showed that he was losing it and getting into trouble, whereas in this game he didn't. He allowed the single, and that was it. And so you could say, well, he should have had a longer leash. He should have at least had more time to show that he could get out of this. But there was zero room for error

here. This was not game two of the series in the fifth inning with the Rays up 5-0. This was game six of the series, an elimination game, with the Rays up 1-0 in the sixth. So if you think Snell is losing it at all, you can't wait around for that to happen. Because if he gives up another hit, if he gives up a homer, there goes your lead, there goes your season. So different situation, less leeway. That said, the margin for error was so small here.

Like, even if Snell had gotten out of the sixth then you still have to shut down the Dodgers for three more innings the best offense in baseball if you want to win this game because the Rays scored one run and there are very few paths you can take to a one nothing victory against the Dodgers but that's sort of the thing that you can point to if you want to say yes yes, he was dealing, yes, he was shoving, yes, he was cruising, that doesn't mean that he would continue to. And I saw a thread on Twitter by a writer named Connor Kirkon, who's the co-founder of a site called Six Man Rotation, and he looked for comparable starts. So he said from 2017 to 2020, there were 202 starts in which the starting pitcher went five innings struck out nine plus hitters walked one or fewer and allowed one or fewer runs he calls these starts snells for

the most part these 202 snells were unsurprisingly a majority of the time from the game's elite pitchers so we're not dealing with a sample of mediocre pitchers that got lucky for five innings this is 202 pitchers of snell's caliber or better pitching just as well. The most Snells were like Justin Verlander, Chris Sale, Garrett Cole, Max Scherzer. He says in the 202 Snells, the ERA was.62 through five innings pitched. 181 of these pitchers came back out for the sixth. In a large number of these starts, the pitcher was beginning to face the top of the lineup for the third time. In the sixth inning, the 181 pitchers allowed 72 runs in 167 and two thirds innings pitch. That's a 3.86 ERA. And he says this doesn't even include the players they

left on base. He concludes, my point in all of this is that the narrative that Blake Snell was dealing, therefore you keep him in, means nothing. All of these pitchers were just as good or better and pitching just as well or better, but the correct choice on average for these 202 starts was to bring in a good reliever. He also noted that the mean and median pitch count after five innings pitch was 76 pitches. He said in the lower pitch count Snells, the sixth inning ERA was 3.69. In the higher pitch count Snells, the ERA was 4.12, so there is some difference but not a huge difference. And I also saw that Sam Sharp on Twitter added to that tweet looking at it from an ex-Woba perspective, looking at the best 200 games by ex-Woba through the fifth inning where the starter went into the sixth. So that's games with a 126 or lower ex-Woba

through five in those games. The starter had a 304 Woba in the sixth inning, and that doesn't change at all with the pitch count numbers. And he said if you move up the threshold to a 200 ex-Woba, at all with the pitch count numbers. And he said, if you move up the threshold to a 200 X WOBA, then in the sixth inning, you see a 320 WOBA, which is league average. So that's good data, I think, but that's just almost an unwinnable argument. No one will be persuaded by that. That's, it's like right up there with trying to tell people that, yes, the Astros cheated and it was bad, but it doesn't seem to have actually helped them or, you know, they were really good anyway. Like that might be the case, but no one really wants to hear it. No one buys that not knowing what pitch is coming would not be helpful.

And similarly, I think no one buys that a pitcher who has been pitching as well and seems to have stuff as good as Snell did would not be a safe bet to continue to pitch well. But that is one of those counterintuitive findings that how you've performed up to a certain point just doesn't seem to be all that predictive of how you will perform after that point. It doesn't seem like managers historically have had a great sixth sense for when a pitcher was or wasn't about to lose it. Like, you're dealing until you stop dealing. And sometimes you do, and sometimes you don't. And Cash went with the history here.

At least that's the assumption. That's what he said. It's also true that Snell had just thrown his slowest fastball of the game and his slowest curveball of the game, and did they pick up on something he was doing? I don't know, but one would assume that they probably just went with the historical patterns here and many times it works out and many times it doesn't and i'm not going to say it was clearly the right move but i wouldn't say it was clearly the wrong move either at least to pull snell to

put in anderson that is a different decision and i think one that is easier to critique how good would anderson have had to be leading up to that for you to think that it was it would have been a non-controversial like if if anderson in the regular season had a era of like what point 0.6 something like that and he had 15 strikeouts per walk and he had you know he was the best at everything and he had been you know as good in uh after the raise got him in 2019 and and really he had been as good with the marlins except for one month where he lost it so nick anderson is is every bit the dominant bullpen monster or or had been every bit the dominant bullpen monster that that any other pitcher that you could name had been but then he

he just lost it in the postseason and that colors the decision in you know entirely but yeah if if anderson had dominated the postseason do you think that the decision to pull Snell could have been uncontroversial with any other reliever, including Pete Anderson. I mean, you say that maybe with Fairbanks or Castillo, other people said maybe with Fairbanks and Castillo, it would have been defensible by you here. But do you think it would have gone over any better on Twitter if he had had Pete Nick Anderson? Would it have gone any better on on twitter if he had had pete nick anderson would it have gone any better on

twitter or are we just too too tied to the notion of the starter as throwing more than 73 pitches that we'll we'll never we'll never accept that if it's a particularly if it's a name brand starter who yes is pitching as well as he has and has a i mean has won a cy young and and all that yeah right and i think also people just aren't really aware that it doesn't seem to matter And has, I mean, has won a Cy Young and all that. Yeah, right. And I think also people just aren't really aware that it doesn't seem to matter. The times through the order effect doesn't really seem that dependent on your pitch count. It's more of a familiarity effect than a fatigue effect. So I think that's the case.

Yeah, but Russell doesn't think that's the case. Yeah, but Russell doesn't think that's the case. I think he has acknowledged that at least one aspect of something that he published on that topic didn't take something into account that would potentially affect the takeaway. And I think there has been subsequent research that, at least to my satisfaction, made the case pretty convincingly that it is more about familiarity than fatigue. And you're right, though, that's not settled science. There's still some disagreement on that score. But I think that's how the Rays have operated when they're pulling snow after 73 pitches or Morton after 66. And did you see that incredible fact that Nick Anderson has faced more batters in the postseason than he faced in the regular season? Yeah. So if you're going with samples, even without the recency of those, if you're going with samples, the bad Nick Anderson is actually a greater portion of the year than the good Nick Anderson was.

Yeah, no, it's true. I mean, he was like in the regular season, I think he was the third best relief pitcher by FIP, and he was also the third best by FIP over the past two seasons. But he's been pitching so much in the postseason, which maybe has played a part in his apparent decline here. Maybe he's been overworked. I don't know. Maybe it took a toll.

Two pitchers this year in Major League Baseball allowed a run. Two relievers allowed a run in seven consecutive games this year. One of them is Nick Anderson, and the other is Jacob Wogspack. Okay. Yeah. He's the first postseason pitcher in history to ever do that. Right. Yes.

So if they had had peak Anderson, like the Anderson of the regular season, and if he had continued to pitch like that in the postseason, I think the outcry would have been much more muted. I think there still would have been some, because I think when a pitcher is pitching as well as Snell was, and when he has the name that Snell does, I think a lot of people are just going to say it's his game to lose. And if he hasn't gotten into trouble yet, that he should be allowed to essentially that he has earned that and of course the rays don't care about uh what a player has earned or i don't think they think of things

that way they just think of what's going to happen next what's most likely to win us this game it's sort of a very unromantic way to approach managing and so the fact that they did not seemingly have peak Anderson at their disposal or at least all evidence points to that like I suppose that Cash and the Rays believed that Anderson was

still great right I mean they they must have it's the whole point of bringing him in there they wouldn't have done this if they thought he was the pitcher that he had been in his last several appearances. And obviously they're looking at lots of data. They're not just saying, look at the sample size. I'm sure they're looking at his stuff and they're well aware that he wasn't getting the whiffs and the strikeouts. He didn't seem to be himself.

He didn't seem to be himself. So what it was exactly that gave them the confidence or gave Cash the confidence that he was himself or close enough to it that he had confidence in him in this situation, I don't know really. But it certainly seems from afar as if he was not his usual self. And if you bring in Fairbanks or Castillo, those guys are not Nick Anderson's usual self either. So I think that does color the decision, certainly. So I had a bigger problem with bringing in Anderson, I think, than pulling Snell. But you could also say that, well, if you don't have the Anderson who inspires confidence, then you shouldn't pull Snell. Exactly. My issue with it, I mean, I don't know that I had some issues with it, various issues, but I felt like for the Rays, you have to win two games still. It doesn't do you

any good to win one and not win two at the end of the day. You have to win two. Now, granted that if you win game six, then maybe game seven, you score 35 runs and everything's easy, but you're going to have to throw 13 more innings. And the odds are, they're all going to be hard and you have to be good in all of them. And I don't see 13 innings on that staff, 13 available innings over the next 27 hours that are better than Blake Snell at 73 pitches on a night that he's shoving. And I do not believe that you can't tell of a starter. I know that there's research. I can't get it into my head to believe that you can never tell that a pitcher looks good.

I can't get that into my head. So if you have 13 innings, you're counting down to a World Series title, then I think that you should probably ride Snell for one or two of those. I think that if should probably ride Snell for one or two of those. I think that if you start ticking off who's better than him right there and you run out of innings, which I think you would. I don't think you'd get very far.

Maybe you have five of Charlie Morton and maybe you have one or two of Tyler Glass now. And then you start to get into the relievers that I'm not quite sure of, then I think you need to take it while you have it. Because as soon as Snell's out of the game, then you don't have him anymore. And so I think it is a totally different thing if you have utter super confidence in the three nominal aces of the Rays' bullpen. I actually don't have that much confidence in any of the three of them. Yeah, and I think there are good arguments against this. I don't think one of those arguments is Mookie Betts hasn't hit lefties this year, which was something you saw a lot of people

citing his numbers in 64 plate appearances or whatever. Like over the course of his career, he has been basically the same against lefties and righties. And you'd expect him to be better against lefties. So that's a little weird, but not that weird. And just based on platooning and platoon splits, you would think that he would be better against lefties. And you'd certainly think that Snell would be worse against a righty. So it's not a great matchup, but I think there is a case that it was the right matchup to leave him in there. And beyond that, I don't think that's an obvious call either way. I'm not going to come out and say, brilliant decision. All the haters should look at the numbers and Cash is right. I'm also not going to say Cash is wrong and he's a robot and he's going by the

sabermetric book or whatever. I think there's some nuance here and it's not that clear cut, but I also don't like it. Just from an entertainment standpoint, I would have rather seen Blake Snell there. And that's sort of what I wrote about. And I've written about this before and talked about it before, but I don't really like this brand of baseball as much as the brand where the starter was allowed to go deep into games. And I feel kind of hypocritical saying that because five years ago or more, when we were all every postseason saying, oh, time's through the order, time's through the order penalty, third time through, he left him in too long. We were all saying that when it did seem clear that a lot of managers and teams were ignoring that effect and that potential advantage. And now I guess they're all on board. This thing that bloggers were saying seven or eight years ago and no one was paying attention to, openers and bullpen games and all of that. Now it's standard. It's normal. And in fact,

relievers pitched more than half of postseason innings this year. And it's become increasingly difficult even to classify relievers versus starters and openers versus starters who have short leashes. Like Tony Consolin, who's a good pitcher. He got five outs in this game. And so it's not like it's just the Rays either. Like the Rays have pushed it, but it's kind of everyone. Like there's no such thing as a postseason pitcher's duel anymore, really. Clayton Kershaw's eight inning start in this postseason was the only one where a pitcher went more than seven. And this is, is you know with the most postseason games ever played it's just gotten more and more extreme with the exception of last year with the Astros

and the Nationals that kind of brought the starting pitcher back for a year now it's just continued to accelerate toward this just amorphous you know everyone goes four innings and then you bring in seven relievers and I just don't think it good. And I don't think it's good from a time of game and pitching changes perspective. It's not great from a strikeouts perspective. But more than that, I think it's just it's not that much fun to not get to see if Blake Snell could get out of this situation. Like, it would have been, I think, more interesting to see if the guy who was so great could pitch out of this gym and could go deep into the game and could find a way to beat Betts and Seager and these other guys a third time. And I get it.

Like, it's not that cash or the raise are solely responsible. This is just a widespread strategy in baseball now. But I'm kind of coming around to, like like some of the more extreme, you know, we need to cap the number of pitchers on the roster in a stricter way than it's currently capped. Because I just I don't know if this is really to baseball's benefit or to ours. You know, one of the things that is that you see anytime you look at the splits for the times through the order you see like oh they're they're pretty good the first time and then they're they're almost as good the second time and then they're way worse the third time and then they're really good again the fourth time and and of course we like it's very easy to say oh well that's because like you know it's generally only the very best pitchers who are allowed to go that far and only on days where they have it, right?

Only on days where you're shoving. And the fact that the fourth time they're good implies that you actually can tell who's going to do well. Because managers are not leaving pitchers out there to get hit the fourth time. They can tell. Now, to me, that suggests that it's not every pitcher who's got one run allowed in the sixth is likely to carry that forward into the seventh. That most pitchers, most days are normal, but that there is a subset of pitchers and a subset of their days where they are clearly dominant. And the fact that when they get to the fourth time, they are still dominant suggests that these managers aren't totally flying blind out there,

that they actually can sort of identify which pitchers to let go very deep. Right. Does that make sense to you? Is there is there a logic there? very deep right does that make sense to you is there is there a logic there it's somewhat persuasive like i i don't know if there's something different about when a pitcher is allowed to go deep like is it just that uh he's facing a weaker lineup or something and you think you can get away with it i wonder whether if you did all the adjustments it would be as well you can't you can't get to the weak part of a lineup the fourth time until you've gotten through the strong part of the lineup the fourth time. Or just maybe you're facing a weaker hitting team.

Right. Maybe you're facing a weaker hitting team. That is true. I mean, and certainly you'd be more likely to be dominating if you're facing a weaker hitting team. But that is true. That is a possibility. But I think that it's probably just when you're pitching well. And also, like I just said, like I hadn't even mentioned this, but the number of plate appearances in which a pitcher has faced an opponent the fourth time would be heavily skewed toward the top of the order. And so, in fact, the numbers are even probably better if you adjust for the quality of the hitter a little bit.

or even probably better if you adjust for the quality of the hitter a little bit. Anyway, it's striking, I think, how quickly we've gone from the Grady Little game to the Kevin Cash game. And the Grady Little game was a while ago. I mean, there are more recent examples. It was just like it felt like five or six Octobers ago, every game, it was like, oh, left him in too long. It was getting boring to keep saying that and now we're on the other end of the spectrum where maybe analytically it's better than the mistake they were making before if it is a mistake but it's also just less fun frankly i think so you said analytically did i just hear you say analytically yes okay. Okay. I have to go, but I want to quick focus on that word.

So in the NLCS, I think there was a game where I think the Dodgers jumped ahead on their opponent early and it might've been the game that they jumped ahead 12-0. Yeah, I think it was. It was the game they jumped ahead 12-0 and 15-0. And one of the announcers says in like the second inning, this was a game that Urias had started. And one of the announcers said, well, you know, the Dodgers are really analytical.

Or he said they're really into analytics. So maybe they'll pull Urias so that he can be available in game six now. And I thought that's really interesting that that is what gets wrapped into analytics. Like the idea that when you're up 15, nothing, or when you have a comfortable lead that you might save some of your starting pitchers arms that he can come back earlier.

Isn't analytics like they didn't need stat cast for that. That's just like basic gameplay. Like that's the same sort of thinking that you do when you're playing monopoly and you're you know you're trying to decide whether to pay 50 to get out of jail or just roll to see if you get doubles it's just sort of like oh how am i playing this game and like frank thomas also described this as another analytical meltdown total disaster blake snell was your only chance of winning a tight game tonight 73 pitches are you kidding me and again is is this analytics i

guess this is associated with a style of play that has correlated to the usage of analytics in other forms it's sort of seen as part of analytics But it's just interesting to me how this word analytics has been totally taken away and redefined, not as anything having to do with actual advanced stats or advanced numbers, but simply a style of play. And I'm trying to think of what that style of play actually is that is being identified you know broadly as analytics or if it's just a matter of like i think that analytics just refers now to the front office anything that is like it seems like it's the front office's idea that's analytics yeah or maybe it's like disregarding heart or what the player wants.

You hear about analytics when it's like, you know, J-Hap is used as the bulk guy and he says he wanted to start. Oh, well, analytics. Or when Blake Snell wants to stay in the game and he's pitching well and the Rays say no because they're time through. Oh, that's analytics. time through oh that's analytics it's like whenever you sort of uh disregard the player's preference or or like the the eye test and you go with sort of the large n you know overall kind of what benefits you as opposed to like the cut of this guy's jib like i think that's part of it it has become a very nebulous word and kind of like this baseball culture war kind of flashpoint where analytics is just the insult that you level at people, but it's very

inconsistently applied. You're right. And it's just like certain teams are more associated with it. And so whatever they do, it's analytics analytics although like in many cases this postseason it's like you know the yankees versus the rays or the rays versus the dodgers and it's like oh analytics and you can't distinguish between these teams and in the degree to which they actually rely on whatever analytics is you know they're all doing it so So, yeah, I mean, this was a broadcast like this broadcast was like showed, you know, tons of pitch tunneling graphics. Yeah. Which is, you know, sort of classic analytics concept. And that was that was all good.

But then this other sort of nebulous thing of like, do we bring in our our bullpen monster is analytics when really it's just a matter of like, I don't know. We don't really know why Kevin cash made that decision, but it could just be as simple as thinking that his pitcher looked like he had gotten slightly tired. I will say that they showed, I think they showed Anderson starting to move around in the bullpen. And I texted my friend, I can't even imagine that somebody would contemplate pulling Blake Snell right now.

And I'm mid-typing, in the middle of that sentence, when Austin Barnes gets the hit, and I just thought, eh, and I deleted it. Yeah, it's like whatever goes against norms or traditions is analytics, maybe. It's kind of tough to pin down. But I think Mookie Betts said it was like, it felt like a sigh of relief when Snell left the game. And Dusty Baker said the same thing in ALCS Game 7. He said, you know, he was hoping that the Rays would take out Morton. And so, if you're doing something that your opponent is so happy about, that would seem like you are making

a mistake that you were playing into their hands. It worked in the Morton case. It didn't work in the Snell case. But then again, that's attributing a certain level of predictive power to players that I don't think they always have, or evaluative power. I mean, you'd think that a player would be able to tell, this guy's good, and this guy will continue to be good. And it certainly seems intuitive that you could look at a guy and say, yep, I don't know. Maybe they are taking it into account in some way, but I think that's kind of what it comes down. It really is like a single situation versus the aggregate, I think, is often analytics. It's like people will say, you're going by the numbers. And in this case, for whatever reason, the numbers were misleading. You shouldn't have gone with the numbers.

And so analytics, analytics is the boogeyman. Yeah, I think we can do a whole episode on this at some point in the offseason because I'm still interested in talking this out more. All right. So we will end there. Thanks for sticking with us all season, if you did. I know baseball was not always at the top of everyone's mind, wasn't always at the top of our minds, frankly, but we made it. And thanks to all of you who followed along and listened and said nice things

and certainly made my year better to have that interaction and to hear that people were getting something from the show. So thank you. That'll do it for today. You can support Effectively Wild on Patreon by going to patreon.com slash effectively wild. The following five listeners have already signed up and pledged some small monthly amount to help keep the podcast going and get themselves access to some perks.

Bill Gallagher, Matt Lindner, David Calvert, Adam Halpin, and Benji Riches. Thanks to all of you. You can join our Facebook group at facebook.com slash group slash effectively wild. You can rate, review, and subscribe to Effectively Wild on iTunes and Spotify and other podcast platforms. Keep your questions and comments for me and Sam and Meg coming via email at podcastofangraphs.com or via the Patreon messaging system if you are a supporter. Thanks to Dylan Higgins for his editing assistance.

We'll be back with one more episode before the end of this week. Talk to you then.