Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 1742: The Race (and Series) of the Season

Episode Date: September 3, 2021

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley talk to The Athletic’s Grant Brisbee and SB Nation’s Eric Stephen about the last series of the regular season between the tied-for-first-place Dodgers and Giants, the historic greatness of their race, the state of (and outlook for) their respective rosters, the strengths and weaknesses of each team, their secret sauces, […]

Food grows where water flows It's the battle cry of the west I try like all the rest To take it easy Undertows and dominoes When heavy on my mind It feels like summertime in the valley Hello and welcome to episode 1742 of Effectively Wild,

a baseball podcast from Fangraphs presented by our Patreon supporters. I am Ben Lindberg of The Ringer, joined by Meg Rowley of Fangraphs. Hello, Meg. Hello. We are joined today by two former colleagues, not of us, but of each other, current rivals, sort of, and inveterate punters. The combined punning power of the people on this podcast is scary to contemplate. Hopefully, there won't be too many puns today. The great Grant Brisby of The Athletic. Hello, Grant.

Hello, Ben. Hello, Meg. And no hello for Eric. Well, you spoiled it. We also have Eric Stephen of SB Nation and True Blue LA. Hello, Eric. Hello. I'm finding it hard to live up to that intro, so I'm going to probably have the least amount

of puns on this entire episode as a result. That's not a bad thing. That is a distinction that you should probably try to hold. So we are all here today to talk about the two best teams in baseball, or at least the two that have won the most games, because they are facing off this weekend in one of the most exciting regular season series I can recall. Certainly one of the most exciting early September series. I can't recall getting very excited about many of those, but I am extremely excited about this weekend's matchup between the Giants and the Dodgers for NL and NL West supremacy. And some people won't hear this podcast until after the series starts or even ends, so we won't focus

exclusively on this weekend, but we'll do a little season in review and rest of season slash playoff preview to set up this series, which hopefully all of you are just as excited about as I am. The Giants and Dodgers are both 85 and 49. We were saying that we were kind of rooting for the Giants on Thursday, just so that they would have identical records coming to this podcast. Very convenient, just in a narrative sense. They are tied atop the West. They are tied for the best record in baseball.

They're both on pace for 103 wins. The season series is tied 8-8. Even the run totals in the season series are tied at 68. This is the first time the Dodgers and Giants have been tied in September since 1997. They are both on pace for 100 wins or more, which would be a first since 1962. And this is the earliest in the season they've played their last regular season series since 1968. And as Sarah Langs noted on Twitter, this is only the second time in the divisional era that two teams with a 630 or

better winning percentage have met 130 or more games into a season, along with the Yankees and Dodgers in late August 2019. So this is the first time that's happened among division rivals. So you guys have actually been covering these teams all season. How hyped for this are you? Or are you like two tired prize fighters who are just sort of staggering around the ring at this point that wow when you put it like that i guess the series is kind of a big deal yeah yeah did you realize this wait that's this weekend no yeah it's uh it's a it's a long season and sort of reaching that point where you're just trying to get by. But you need sort of stimulation like this sometimes.

It's like a caffeine jolt, and this is definitely going to be that. So I'm definitely looking forward to it. Yeah, I just filed a piece that's all about this moment right now where we're talking, and it's the between. It's the anticipation. And I think it's just so dang pure. Like it's one of my favorite baseball moments. It's not necessarily winning the championship. It's that moment between Pennant and Game 1 of the World Series where everyone's buzzing,

everyone's got ideas, and you're replaying different scenarios in your brain. And it's just so much fun. Like anything can happen. And eventually you'll get a name in your, your head. It might be Brian Johnson. It might be Steve Finley. You know what I mean?

Like giants fans could go either way. Dodgers fans could go either way, but just like right now, this is, this is the nectar people. This is the baseball nectar. It's almost a shame that someone has to win this series or that they can't play like an even number of games or something.

Cause the symmetry of it is just so pleasing. Someone at the end of this weekend will be ahead in the division and will have won the season series. And I kind of wish they could just draw, they could just play to a tie in every category. Yeah, no, it is. And that is where, so it could be one team's three games up, one team's one game up. Those are the options. And there will be 25 games after this. So it's not like a three-game deficit even in the event of a sweep by either team would be – they couldn't overcome that. But it's so intense, like three baseball games.

Baseball is not supposed to be this intense. like three baseball games. Baseball's not supposed to be this intense. Yeah, we never do like a podcast that is really inspired by a regular season series. Yeah, very rare. A football podcaster or something. This is weird. Usually it's just all a blur and series and games, they just pass you by and you don't get as hyped for a single matchup like this. But yeah, Grant, you just mentioned a couple moments from past Dodgers-Giants matchups, and I know, Eric, you just wrote about a 50-year retrospective

of the 1971 race. I mean, how does this stack up? I don't know if you've done historical deep dives on this, but what else comes to mind as the greatest races between these two teams and where this one compares? I guess contrary to popular belief, I wasn't alive in 1962 when the teams met. But everyone talks about the 1951 shot heard around the world playoff. But like the 62 playoff was kind of crazier and wilder and probably possibly two better teams.

I don't know like uh they both won 101 games they they played the best of three playoff first game was in san francisco the giants blew out the dodgers the the next two were in la and um you know the dodgers won the second game they had a two run lead in the ninth inning of game three and then they lost and then the you know the giants went to the world series i think like looking back no Dodger fan is like that bent out of shape because they won like two of the next three World Series but like I would imagine if they didn't win after that like that would have everyone would have thought like Walt Austin was like a choker basically just because of that so that that's like the one that really stands out and that's like the last time I think both teams were this good this late really that was I mean that is definitely the series that is when you're talking

about a perfect comp for this kind of team it or this this kind of matchup between these two teams that's the best one because they were both just rolling they were both uh expect you know they were both just excellent excellent top tier teams. That was before the divisional stuff. So it was just that gnashing battle for the pennant. That's the perfect comp. I think 97 is also a good comp. It's a little bit different insofar as like the Giants were outscored that season and

they probably weren't very good. You know, in retrospect, they weren't, they probably shouldn't very good uh you know in retrospect they weren't they probably shouldn't have won that that division uh but at the same time that's a good one because no one expected the 1997 Giants to be good at all it was always you know the Dodgers in 1997 they had 17 18 rookies of the year on that roster like it was bananas like every year they would win the rookie of the year and it was Piazza and keros and mondesi and they just had an embarrassment of riches the giants didn't have anything they had bonds you know and that was it and no one expected it and and so that's also a good comp for for this year so that was then if we look at this series and then what we should

expect over the next month of play what is what would you say is the current state of both of these rosters? I'm going to put this question to both of you. How healthy are they? How complete are they in terms of the guys who we are going to see now and then in the postseason? Because I will spoil this for our listeners. While we have varying opinions on the division odds for both of these teams, they are two of the only teams at Van Gras right now that have 100% playoff odds. So it is relevant not only for this series, but for what we expect

to see in October. So what is the state of the Giants and the Dodgers at this moment? It's going to be a lot of bullpen games, I think for both teams, maybe not specifically in this series, but the Dodgers at the moment basically have three healthy starters. And that's probably not fair to David Price, who's technically in the rotation, but he's averaging under five innings a start. He's only completed five innings twice since joining the rotation. So it's like every time they throw him out there, it's a bullpen game. And they've been rotating in Mitch White and Andre Jackson up and down from the minors so they're sort of just getting by and somehow it's like working they they just claimed two relievers

and traded for a minor league reliever one of whom is going to be active uh Andrew Vasquez for this series um so you know like players that you know you might not have heard of and they're just they just sort of need warm bodies at this point and that's that's how they're getting by but it's kind of working so like i don't know i am on one of my favorite websites of all time it's fangraphs.com slash roster dash resource yeah it's a really good site grant it's fantastic and it's telling you what the lineup is for the giants what the you know what the roster looks like and as of right now roster resource has three starting pitchers for the giants which i think says a lot i don't remember the last time i've seen that it's

uh gossman it's uh logan webb uh they will not appear in this series those are the giants two best starters uh in their stead will be anth De Sclafani who he's gotten really lit up by the Dodgers all year and then two bullpen games and that kind of sums up where the Giants are as far as health and uh it's a it's a real duct tape kind of series a real duct tape kind of rotation they'll have Jose Quintana you know which a surprise. The Giants have Jose Quintana. Sammy Long will factor in. The Dodgers aren't so hot against left-handed pitching, so Long and Quintana really do make sense in this series. I don't know how many innings they'll be able to give, but that's where the Giants are. They are running on fumes, but at the same time, they've been so deep in so

many different ways all year. It doesn't seem like it bothers them. This is just, all right, you know, we'll do this, we'll do that. That's what they've done all year. Yeah, I guess there are only a couple ways that the series could be better. One is if it were like the last weekend of the season or something. The other is if you had some more marquee pitching matchups, if you had like a Scherzer-Gossman key pitching matchups if you had like a Scherzer-Gossman matchup or if you had Clayton Kershaw who's on the IL or Logan Webb who just pitched well in the Giants last game so you're missing some of that I guess there is potential for just strangeness and just kind of cobbling together innings which can be entertaining in its own way so, there are also like some COVID issues, some injury issues. Buster Posey

seems a bit banged up and his bat has not been up to its early season standards, right? So what else is going on with this roster? That's the big one. And I was back in May, June, I had this idea for an article like, hey, let's all remember that Buster Posey is a catcher and he's probably at some point going to stop hitting like this because catching is a cruel profession. And I couldn't make it work because it just, it was such a downer. It was such a, you know, it was just such a lack of faith that I don't think Posey earned, but the idea was there.

And so I've been thinking about this for months and months and months. It's like, all right, at some point, the real world's going to catch up to him. The fact that he hasn't played 162 games in a while, or he didn't play at all last season, it's going to catch up with him. And I think that's what you're seeing. So that's a big concern. You have the DL right now is Evan Longoria, Wilmer Flores, Donovan Solano. That's a big chunk of their right-handed lineup, their ideal right-handed lineup when it comes to facing a left-handed pitcher. So they're dinged up, but I don't think that any team right now is any different. I mean, I know the Dodgers are a little dinged up, so it is as they say what it is. 11th when the Giants were 38 and 23 that is a 623 winning percentage and we talked a lot about like can they keep this up is there going to be regression or are they just going

to kind of stumble to the finish line and will that be enough and actually they've gone 47 and 26 since we talked to you that's a 644 winning percentage so somehow they picked up the pace since we had you on to talk about their super surprising season which is why i wanted to ask

each of you if you could sort of assign a percentile outcome to this season for each team so like with the pakoda projections where the 50th percentile projection that's like your mean projection that's if everything just plays out as projected where would you put the percentiles for these seasons? Because the Dodgers, everyone expected them to be good. The Giants, not so much. And even though the records are identical, there are some differences here if you look kind of under the hood. The Dodgers are easily leading the majors in run differential at plus 213. The Giants are fifth, although second in the NL at 142. And if you go by base runs record, sort of expected record, which of course is not how they decide the standings and the playoffs, et cetera, the Dodgers quote unquote should be 88 and 46. The Giants should be 84 and

50. Anyway, that's a long prelude to asking where you would put the percentiles. So, Eric, you want to go first? Sure. I mean, yeah, you have to think the Dodgers are still favored. I mean, they're tied right now with, what, 28 games left. So you would have to say they're winning the division, you know, more often than not, I think, in just generally. But there's still, you know, like you say, you got to play the games. And they do only have three healthy starters. And you can only churn through the bullpen and have players come up and down from the minors so often before it sort of bites you. So I think there's a sizable, I don't know, what would I say, like 30% to 40% chance that they don't win the division. So it's not like by any

means a lock, but I think it's a pretty good chance they end up atop the heap. Yeah. The playoff odds give the Dodgers a 76.5% chance to win right now. The strength of schedules are fairly even the rest of the way. Giants a little tougher, But even just looking retrospectively, like getting to this point on this day of the season, you know, if I had told you back on opening day that the Dodgers would be 85 and 49 on September 3rd and on pace for 103 wins, putting aside where the Giants are, where the Padres are, et cetera, like, would you say that is kind of like the 50th percentile outcome for them or are they outperforming or underperforming expectations? Oh, that's a good question. et cetera, like, would you say that is kind of like the 50th percentile outcome for them? Or are they outperforming or underperforming expectations? Oh, that's a good question. Like, it is probably

right, almost right exactly where you would expect them. But like in, you know, in a way that there's no way you would have expected, like, like they went into the season with, with, you know, Trevor Bauer, and obviously a healthy Clayton Kershaw. They kept talking in the spring about how they had eight starting pitchers. Two of those were David Price and Jimmy Nelson. Jimmy Nelson's out for the year, and he was used solely in relief. Price was mostly a reliever, now a starter, but not really a starter. So they've somehow managed to still be good.

They lost Cody Bellinger for a good chunk of time. Plus he's coming off shoulder surgery and has been terrible. Corey Seager missed something like almost four months with a broken hand or three months, I guess. And Mookie Betts has been on the injured list. So I don't know, like how they've done it is weird, but this is still probably right roughly where you would have expected them i think at the beginning of the season uh i would like to offer up the 99th percent for the giants i mean every every year or at least for the last couple years i've been tasked with writing the giants best case scenarios the worst case in the in between right and it's one

of the it's it's something that i've done for a couple years now and you go the worst case in the in-between, right? And it's one of the, it's, it's something that I've done for a couple of years now. And you go to the worst case scenario and it's, uh, you know, it's the apocalypse. It's everything bad happening. The best or the, the likeliest scenario was that the Giants are going to be pretty good. They were going to be interesting. They were going to be a team that was worth watching. And I was okay with that. And then the best case scenario that I wrote, and again, the, the job that I had was to come up with just Pollyanna stuff with just make it up, just make up the best case scenario. And I still think I undersold what the Giants have done this year. Like it, you know, the, the actual words that I write were something like, uh, maybe they'll win a lot of games, maybe a lot more, maybe enough to

make the Dodgers and Padres sweat. You know, it's like maybe they could at least put the thought in their heads and they've been better. Like now they're tied and with the Dodgers at the top of the division. And it's like panic time in Giants land because, oh my gosh, they're finally tied. It's coming. It's, you know, it this is the the worst case scenario now no this is still 99th percentile stuff yeah we spent the early part of the season extolling the virtues of the dodgers padre series and how we hoped that that would be every series they would

play for the rest of the season and now like ben said like i can't remember the last time i was this excited for a regular season series so the the turntables have turned, as they say. You both mentioned health and sort of durability as a limitation that is potentially in the way for both of these teams. But I'm curious just generally as we zoom out, both for this series and going forward, sort of what you view as the best and worst parts

of each of these teams. Like what are the things where you see a guy come in and you go, oh, thank God, or you go, oh no, I'm gonna have to do a rewrite. What is inspiring confidence and trepidation for each of you? Giving me confidence right now is that for the most part,

the Dodgers offense is at full strength. A big part of that has been Mookie Betts being healthy. He's had hip issues most of the second half. He missed two different stints on the injured list. It's weird because he was just hitting up a storm, but like couldn't really run much. And I don't know, he had some insane number. I think he's slugging like 800 since the all-star break, but just barely playing. But yeah, just getting him healthy. Like I think since the Dodgers acquired Trey Turner, who, oh, by the way, he's like probably like probably a pretty decent NL MVP candidate. They've only played Trey Turner and Mookie Betts together eight times. So I think over the last 28 games or so,

they'll probably still have to rest Betts every so often. But I would imagine those guys will be in the lineup at least like 20 times, you know, and that's a positive sign. And plus, you know, having Corey Seager back after he missed so much time. They're back at that knock on wood, like no holes lineup, I guess, is a way to put it. And I think everyone in the lineup is pretty good outside of they're at a point where they don't have to play Cody Bellinger, basically. And he's been just so bad, like good defensively, but not good enough offensively to really play.

So he's still going to start every now and then. But I think just the health of the offense is probably the most optimistic thing for them right now. Yeah, I don't want to cut off your answer, Grant, but I did want to ask about Bellinger, just because he is now basically being platooned, right? He's not hitting against lefties. He is theoretically hitting against righties, but not all that well. And we mentioned recently on the podcast when he went on a little bit of a hot streak and he had four homers and four games, but then he went back into a deep slump seemingly. So what's your diagnosis of Bellinger? And is this like a long-term concern or is it just like a right off this season sort

of thing? I've kind of written off the season mostly because he's coming off shoulder surgery and he might, it might take a while for the power to come back. Like, you know, we've seen with like Adrian Gonzalez and Sean Green, it maybe took into like that second year post injury or surgery until they fully got it back. Or I guess in Sean Green's case, really didn't get it back. But yeah, like he's also a tinkerer. And so he goes into slumps, then he'll mess with his swing. Like after his MVP season, he like overhauled his swing.

And OK, that's that's an odd thing to do and uh so but like this whole season like you just look at it like he had off-season shoulder surgery he didn't really play in spring training till the final two weeks and then the fifth game of the season he he broke his uh tibia and he he was out for like a month and a half. And then he just really hasn't had a chance to fully come back. I mean, they were playing him quite a bit, but I think it's just a lost season at this point. And long-term, I mean, his floor is still pretty low. I mean, I guess if he keeps doing this, it's a lot lower than I thought. But

like, I think a healthy Cody Bellinger is probably going to be fine. But it's just a matter of like getting him there. And I think he needs like a full, full offseason of, you know, that's not rehabbing to get him back to where he should be. With the Giants, it is the depth. And by depth, I mean, the lack of innings, the lack of plate appearances that are going to players who should not be on the roster. And even with the best teams that I can remember of the Giants, there was always like, look, the Giants won the World Series in 2012 with Ryan Terrio as their DH. Like that was the DH in the fourth game of the 2012 World Series. So there have always been these soft spots of a roster where it's like, ah, that guy, boy, if only had a little bit more than that. They don't have that with this roster. It's more like, gosh, Mauricio Dubon went

back to Sacramento and he's hitting like 330 there. There's just no room for him. Steven Duggar had a fine season. He tailed off a little at the end, but he's a fantastic defensive replacement. He fills the gap. There's just no room for him. And that's what the Giants do well this season that I don't remember them ever doing as well in the past. Every at-bat is going to someone like,

yeah, I can see that. That is the right guy for this moment. That is the right reliever for this moment. It's been a long time and I don't, it's not that common. Like it's not something to get used to because usually there's going to be like one scapegoat on every team, right? Yeah. And Grant, you just wrote an article, kind of a guide to people who are trying to explain

to people that the 2021 Giants aren't just lucky. And you did just say that, you know, they're playing to like their 99th percentile outcome, which I mean, in a sense, that's lucky, but it's also not lucky if you look at their underlying numbers. So like everything going right is some extent lucky, but like it's not as if, well, it has almost seemed to me that like every time I see a story about a Giants game, it's like, and they won in their last at bat or hey, they came back when they were down four in the eighth or whatever. So I don't know if you have any numbers on that, but it just seems like they've had an incredible number of like late comebacks and really exciting wins. But like, what is your general response to this is a fluke or

this is lucky? You know, I'll reference that article that I wrote, again, where I talked about the best case scenario. I didn't just come up with everyone's good now. You know, that's the best case scenario. Haha, you know, suckers. It's that the Giants for the last couple of years have been really good at making players better. They get these players and they say, okay, Kevin Gosman, we think you should do this and that's going to change your career and now you're better. And Donovan Solano, we've seen that you've done this in the minor leagues. Do this a little bit more in the majors. Now you're better. And they did it up and down the roster. They were doing it for the players that they already had. It was, hey, Brandon Belt, try this. Brandon Crawford, try this. Evan Longoria, try this. They were making players

better. And that was when I was doing a best case scenario. It's like, maybe they just keep doing that. And maybe they don't lose the gains that they already had. Maybe Mike Yastrzemski still contributes. Maybe Brandon Belt still contributes, but they're continually making more players better. And that's exactly what happened. They took Lamont Wade Jr. and they said, OK, do this. Now he's better. Darren Ruff, he's like – he's a monster right now. So that's the skill of the Giants right now and it's not something you can fake.

I've watched a lot of bad teams, a lot of mediocre teams, and sometimes they're winning and you're like, ha ha, the bottom is going to fall out at one point. But the way the Giants have just made pitchers, made hitters better, it's hard to fake. And that's why they're in the position they're in. I just read a Ken Rosenthal article about how are the Giants doing this? And I wish they had done it four or five years ago so I could have had a chapter on this in the MVP machine because they would have been the perfect example. But like Ken was writing about how, you know, they have this big coaching staff. It's like, what, 14 people, something like that now. And most of them did not play in the majors and many of them didn't even have previous major league coaching experience. And it seems like they have kind of just come out of

nowhere and made everyone better than they used to be. And now in this article, Kapler is quoted a couple of times saying, basically, we're not doing anything special. We're not doing anything that other teams aren't doing. There's no secret sauce. If you're looking for some market inefficiency or something here, look elsewhere, which i guess is what you would say if you did have some secret sauce that you didn't want other teams to to copy but like do you think that is the giants like competitive advantage is just like hey we'll hire more coaches and they will be coaches from unorthodox backgrounds and we'll be able to make players better because you know he's right in the sense that a lot of other teams have done things like that, namely the Dodgers, who Farhan Zaidi knows well that they've done a really good job of improving

players. So do you see this as like a special giant skill or is it just like a season where that happened to happen over and over again? I think it's got to be somewhat of a repeatable skill, something that they're doing right where it is. This coaching staff, I think Brandon Crawford has been very vocal about, yeah, they are able to really give me attention and work with me in a way with this gigantic coaching staff that maybe wasn't possible before. And what the Giants have done better and what I think Farhan Sa's idea what his most underrated

skill is is recognizing you know the the people stuff the humanity the you have 26 different personalities who are going to interpret data in a different way you have to approach them in a different way you have to coach them in a different way and that's been part of the the skill is saying okay this person loves just as much data as we can shove at them just that's been part of the the skill is saying okay this person loves just as much data as we can shove at them just that's all they want is just give them reams and reams of data that's they love that some players may be a little bit more hands off and hey have you considered this and for the most part they're going to do what they do that has been an underrated component with with the giants this year is the ability to just recognize they're all their own folks and we're going to reach them in different I'm curious, you know, you have this team that in some ways has underperformed

because we didn't expect them to have a competitive race, at least not this competitive of a race, and certainly not with San Francisco, though perhaps with San Diego. And Cody Bellinger has been Bellinger. But I'm curious from your perspective if there are any pleasant surprises among the Dodgers this year. Are there any guys who have sort of outperformed your expectations of them or performed in a different and new way that has been an asset to this team? Yeah, absolutely. And just to pile on a little bit back to Farhan Zaidi for a second, he came to the Dodgers with Andrew Friedman after the 2014 season. So they were in

a spot where, you know, the Dodgers had won the last two divisions, but the Giants were coming off three World Series in five years. And everyone was trying to figure out like how they did that. And he struck me, Zaidi, as someone who was very curious. I believe one of the first like sort of informal meetings we had with him, he was like, like look everyone was asking what is the Giants back then you know what was their secret sauce of winning and he said you can't really overlook what they're doing because they won right so you have that's his job to sort

of figure that out and I think he's sort of he's curious and open to anything and like just figuring out what works and I think that's sort of been the key for both him and, I guess, Andrew Friedman with the Dodgers. And that's been one of their underlying philosophies. They brought in a lot of new relievers this year. They traded Dylan Floro and Adam Kolarik, who were used a reasonable amount last year, but not necessarily key relievers. But some of the relievers they brought in, it just didn't work right away. Alex Vessia was pretty wild in the first part of the year. And then now he's one of their best relievers. He just absolutely challenges everybody

in the zone and celebrates wildly every time he gets through a big inning, which is hilarious and fun to watch. Mostly because he's always pumping his fist and yelling, and then immediately has to stop and take off his hat and glove and hand it to the umpire for a goop check. So that's pretty fun. And then Phil Bickford, they claimed off waivers. Basically, I would say those two are among their four best relievers right now, which I obviously would not have guessed at the beginning of the year.

But it took growing pains to get there. They lost so many extra inning games earlier in the year, like Garrett Clevenger, another rookie who was getting better as the season went on, but he's hurt right now. He lost four extra inning games alone. They were having a lot of guys who were inexperienced or young in very high leverage situations because they ran out of relievers earlier. And so that was that was the thing. But yeah, I think Vessia and Bickford sort of standing out are probably the two biggest surprises, by name on the Giants and like, wait, what? That guy did that? How? But is there like an epitome of that for you? Would it be like one of the older guys who has somehow reached a new level, like your Brandon Crawford? Or would it be someone who like no one had heard of prior to this year or last year that has suddenly performed? You know, I will say that for as surprising as the Giants are, Donovan Solano, Alex Dickerson, Mike Yastrzemski, they've been like, all right. You know, like if you had

told me before the season in September, they're going to be fighting for the National League West, I would have thought, okay, Solano's hitting 330, Yastrzemski's got 50, you know, 40 home runs, Dickerson has an on-base percentage close to 400. So that, it's not all, you know 40 home runs Dickerson has an on-base percentage close to 400 so that it's not all you know sunshine and rainbows but I think the two that really stick with me Crawford is amazing but he was showing this a little bit at the second half of last year so I'm gonna go with Lamont Wade Jr. and Darren Ruff because they are filling complementary rules where Wade can play left field he can also play first base when Brandon Belt was hurt. Wade and Ruff were forming a platoon there. Both of those guys have

been really, really good. Wade has had excellent late inning timing. He's had some really big hits for the Giants, but he's also just good. He's got 17 home runs runs he's playing defense all over the field he runs well Darren Ruff has has morphed into like uh his OPS is 934 it leads the team in adjusted OPS and OPS uh he is he's hitting righties he's hitting lefties I was really curious about him when he came back from the KBO and I was like oh this is a you know this is an interesting signing and I wrote about it and I had to like preface it with like look i know that you guys don't want to read about this i'm so sorry at the same time like this might be something and he has just been so much better he is such a linchpin for this offense because he can pinch hit he can he's in there against uh left-handed pitchers as an outfielder, as a first baseman. His defense is fine.

He has been, to me, the most surprising player of the last two seasons. What would you say has been the signature Giants-Dodgers moment of the season so far? Like the most dramatic game, the most dramatic moment. Hopefully, whatever it was, will be topped sometime this weekend. But does any game we've already seen, just because the season series has been so much fun, what stands out in either of your minds? Tauchman robbing Pujols. Yeah, that was a fun series just generally. But the Dodgers almost won on a walk-off, and Mike Tauchman climbed the wall.

I don't know how far he got over the wall, but that was a home run and then it wasn't. And then the Giants won in extra innings, but that was like an amazing moment. Just like literally made you yell, wow, watching it from either side, really. So it was good. It the moment where albert pooh holes hits the ball and you see the flight of the ball you see how he drops the bat you are primed to experience this well okay get them tomorrow and so to go from that because it was already a gut punch before that the giants uh entered that inning this was i think yeah may 28th and so they had entered the ninth inning with a lead and it was a three-run lead, a huge lead. They should have just walked through that ninth inning.

They were already reeling from Austin Barnes tying the game up. And then it was like, all right, well, now it's over. That's it. And to go from that and then immediately going into the extra innings and building another big lead, that was the signature. I don't, I mean, look, I know we should be hyping up this series. If anything is half as exciting as that game, it will be just a ridiculous game. So the sad news for all of us is that one of these teams has to emerge victorious. They cannot remain tied at the top of the standings forever. And one of them will have to play in a wildcard game. And so I'm putting a less fun question to both of you,

which is of the teams that are sort of reasonably in the field, which team do you think your team, that's such a mean way for me to put this to beat writers who do write objectively, but which of the teams that are sort of reasonably in the field would you feel the most and the least confident facing in a one game plan? Grant, let's start with you. I, so, okay. Are we going to, let's see, I'm assuming the Brewers obviously are going to be in. So we're talking one of the East teams, the Reds, the Cardinals. I really think that the Cardinals, they're one of the teams,

the few teams that have won more games against the Giants this year. The Giants have a losing record against the Cardinals. And it feels like the Cardinals are due to hit the Giants in the nose. And the Giants had the Travis Ishikawa home run. They had Marco Scudero in the rain. Even before that, you had Kenny Lofton and David Bell in 2002. Before that, the Cardinals were the jerks. The Cardinals were the ones knocking him out in 1987. And so there's been this weird push and pull with that. And I'm a narrative guy because I don't really understand how the world actually works. So I have to ascribe a narrative to invent it. And it just feels like this would be the year

that the Cardinals punched the Giants in the nose. Oh boy. I think for the Dodgers, it's... I'm torn on this. I mean, I agree that I'm assuming the Brewers are comfortably in the division series at this point. In a wildcard game, the Dodgers can beat the Padres. Maybe it's either the Reds offense

or like facing the Phillies with Zach Wheeler, basically. I think the Phillies is probably the toughest just because you might have to face Wheeler. But it's, yeah, it's a tough one. Just the whole, the one game playoff is just going to be screwy. And, you know, it's about tough one. Just the whole one-game playoff is just going to be screwy. It's about who can set up what. I would imagine, given where the Dodgers and Giants are at,

whichever team is headed for the wildcard can probably set up their rotation the way they want heading into that, at least more than the second wildcard team. So maybe that's an advantage plus hosting it, but I'm not looking forward to any sort of one game playoff at all. Yeah. I was going to ask whether you think either of these teams is like particularly well set up for October or particularly ill-equipped for October, assuming they get by the wildcard game and into an actual playoff round. And, you know, we could debate what it actually means to be built for October or whether there is such a thing.

But I guess typically you're talking about like the top of your rotation and the back of your bullpen. And maybe there's some extra value to a contact hitting lineup, all else being equal. else being equal so i wonder whether you think that either of these teams is sort of positioned to make a deep run with the obvious caveat that any team any time could make a deep run as maybe the giants showed us multiple times last decade after watching the brewers like that to me is the classic template of a team that oh i don't want to face them they have that three-headed monster at the top of the rotation they have the bullpen depth you have just just they seem like the team that not only can do that you know oh here's andrew miller for three innings ha ha figured out suckers but they also have like the we've got ledsicum we've got kane we've got bum guard like that they can throw both of those at you and i get that they're not a powerhouse as

far as their lineup but they're still pretty darn good so the Brewers I think are the template I don't think the Giants are that they're more of a depth more of a sneaky kind of thing I don't know if they're especially built for the postseason I like the way the Dodgers are set up sort of like they're you know Buehler and Scherzer leading the rotation is fine. I mean, it's great. But, like, they still need Clayton Herschaw back, I think. He's, where is he at now? He's probably at, like, just two-inning simulated game coming this weekend.

So he might not even be, like, sort of ready to be a starter until, like, the last two weeks of the season. And that's a lot to ask to be all of a sudden ready. But maybe he can be. I don't know. He hasn't really pitched much since July 3rd. So that's an issue. But they do have Julio Urias, who's also 22, 23 innings over his career high for any season already. And I think it would behoove them to have Urias as the fourth starter if they can.

But right now they can't afford that, you know, in the postseason. But we'll see. But the offense, like, is very good. And if everyone's healthy, I think they're set up really well. But, yeah, the Brewers are terrifying. Like, I was watching that Brewers-Giants series as well, thinking, oh no, this is going to be quite a hard team to face eventually. So yeah, that's rough. You know, 97% of people would have said Dodgers Padres several months ago. What happened to the Padres, do you think? Because you guys have both seen a lot of them, obviously, and they're still in the running.

They are tied in the last column with the Reds for that second wildcard spot. They're a half game back. They're just a couple games ahead of the Phillies and the Cardinals, so they may still make the playoffs, but it's far from a sure thing. They are 14 games back of the Dodgers and the Cardinals. So they may still make the playoffs, but it's far from a sure thing. They are 14 games back of the Dodgers and the Giants. I did not see that coming. So what went wrong for them this year from your perspective? We talked about how the Dodgers and Giants have both like sort of utilized bullpen games, especially of late. It's been like two months running just about for the Dodgers doing this, but the Padres the last month or so,

have done that much more often. Like they were almost, for a while when Hugh Darvish was hurt, I think they were only running two starters out there. And, you know, Ryan Weathers was sort of a nominal starter, but wasn't really pitching well. So I think their bullpen was very good, but it's been used so much that they're all like super tired right now so that's really been affecting them but uh i i think that more than anything is is why they sort of fell off plus obviously they didn't have to tease for a good stretch but yeah it's just been rough and and they didn't really address it like at the trade deadline that they were rumored obviously in the to get Max Scherzer

they didn't complete that but they didn't even have like a backup starter that they went and acquired so they they had this glaring pitching need and they didn't do anything and I think that that's hurt them more than anything yeah the Padres have really I mean over their franchise history they someone opened a mummy's crypt at some point in Padres history. And this is just such a mummy's crypt season. They are cursed. They spent a lot of capital and just they invested so much in the rotation. And it's, you know, Clevenger's hurt.

Lumet's hurt. And they're just injury, injury, injury. And then ineffectiveness, ineffectiveness. You know, Drew Pomerantz, they gave a ton of money to, well, he's hurt now. They're going to trade for guys, and they're not going to get that Starling Marte, like, wow, lightning in a bottle. They get Daniel Hudson, and they get Adam Frazier,

and they've done nothing. They just keep coming up, Snake Eyes, with all these different moves, all these different on-paper, it should be great. Like, Blake Snell should be a dominant pitcher. Hugh Darvish should be a Cy Young contender. He was like, like five seconds ago, he was. And now they're all just struggling in so many different facets. I can't really explain it other than, wow, that seems tough to weather. So that's this year. That's this year's Padres. But I think that this tight race has sort of rejiggered the way that we think about

the West and who's going to be competitive in the West and to what degree. And so I'm curious for each of you how the sort of success of the respective teams that you cover has altered your understanding of how the Dodgers and the Giants are going to compete in the West going forward? And what does this season sort of signal about their ability to exert some kind of dominance or supremacy over the rest of the division? Well, yeah, so the Dodgers have the, you know, they've won eight straight divisions looking for a ninth. And I think they're probably like this current iteration, they're mostly set up for next year. They do have a lot of free agents this offseason in terms of at the top of the list, like Kershaw,

Scherzer, Corey Seager. But I think they mitigated that somewhat with Trey Turner. But like, I think they're going to be roughly this good next year. We'll see about that. I do view the Giants as the sort of the long-term rival here, like building something up north. Obviously, they have some older players now, but also the system is sort of working and building toward that. And I think just over the next few years, I think it really is a Dodgers-Giants division. And you would imagine

the Padres are still going to be competitive, but I don't see the Diamondbacks or the Rockies being very good anytime soon. So it's really between those three teams. I think there's a couple of different things going on where you can look at guys like Posey, Belch, Crawford, and say, okay, that just can't last for another two years. It might not even be there next year. But the Giants have shown that ability to just make players better, to identify on the free agent market, you know, they're going after Descalfani and Alex Wood rather than, I don't

know, Chris Archer or some other pitcher who might not have worked out in the same way. They've been really good at that. They've been really good at taking Logan Webb and saying, here's what he does well. Let's, you know, weaponize him and make him do it even better. So that's not going to leave them. The particulars, they might be different. You know what I mean? Like, it might not be that they're getting all-star performances out of guys like Lamont Wade or Darren Ruff. They're getting all-star performances out of guys like Lamont Wade or Darren Ruff.

But at the same time, they do seem to have an ability to identify which players they want to work with and which players they can make better. And they might fall back to 80-something wins next year. But I think that the template works in that they would be right in the mix for 90- wins next year or the year after that or the year after that. They have money. They have an idea of how baseball works, and I think they're going to be pretty good for the foreseeable future. Grant, you wrote this a few days ago. The last time the Giants started better than this, Jim Thorpe and Christy Mathewson were on the team. Is this the best Giants team you've ever seen, do you think? I mean, you've seen multiple World Series winning Giants teams that it was kind of tough to say were the best team in baseball the years that they won, or at least most of the years that they won.

Is this a better team than all of those? I don't know. I mean, that's a tricky, for me, the best team that I've ever seen the Giants put on the field was the 2000 Giants because they had Barry Bonds. They had Jeff Kent winning the MVP. They had a rotation that went one through five. You wanted those guys in the rotation. They had a dominant closer. Like that to me was the team that should have won it all in my lifetime. Obviously, it didn't work out like that. But I've watched a lot of teams with Barry Bonds. And it's hard when those teams were really humming and really complete. Those will always be some of the best teams I've ever seen. At the same time, like, yeah, this has been the hottest start the Giants have had ever, basically, since New York, since deep in New York. And we're talking lineups that had Hall of Famer after Hall of Famer. We were talking lineups that actually won the dang World Series. So it's hard for me to wrap my brain around it. But this could be the best Giants team I've ever seen. And the surprise that it took to get here is the only thing preventing me from saying, oh, yeah, this is definitely I mean, yeah, of course, because I'm just as surprised as everyone else. pitchers second and third in baseball with the Dodgers just slightly ahead of the Giants and both behind the Astros. If you look at defensively, like defensive efficiency, the Dodgers have the highest defensive efficiency in the majors. That means they've converted the highest percentage of balls in play into outs, then the Astros, then the Giants. But if you look at other defensive metrics with the Dodgers, they're all over the place. And I don't know whether that's something

you've noticed or whether that is just a function of how the Dodgers play defense. But if you look like on baseball savant outs above average, the Dodgers are at negative 11, which is 23rd in baseball. If you look at team UZR, for instance, the Dodgers are 27th somehow. Maybe that's just because a lot of shift plays are getting thrown out entirely. I don't know. If you look at like team defensive runs saved, they're kind of both ninth, tenth-ish. Do you think the Dodgers are like a really good defensive team? Or is it that they've had good pitching that has allowed fieldable balls?

Or is it just like really hard to quantify it other than just looking at how many balls in play do they turn into outs because they're shifting so constantly? Yeah, I don't think they're like, you know, top three in defensive efficiency good on defense. They're clearly worse, I think, than the last few years. I think losing Quique Hernandez helped. He was sort of the glue either at second base or whatever outfield position he was at. He was seemingly good everywhere. This year has been weird at times.

I think Corey Seager, since he's returned, has looked better defensively, but he was pretty awful in the first part. And then Gavin Lux was also bad at short, but they missed a good chunk of time with Cody Bellinger not in the outfield. Mookie Betts has missed time, so I think that good chunk of time with Cody Bellinger not in the outfield. Mookie Betts has missed time, so I think that's sort of played into it. Muncy, Max Muncy's been really good at first and second, which is kind of surprising. But yeah, it's been a weird, a very weird year defensively. I do think they just, you know, they shift very well. They get a lot of like soft

contact. It seems like sometimes that might hurt them against the shift or something, but I think, I don't know. They don't strike me as a particularly excellent defensive team, but they're probably maximizing what they have with the various shifts and, and placement of guys. But yeah, I don't know. It's, it's not as good as maybe the last few years, but maybe not terrible. So we've talked up this series. We've talked up the rest of the season. I'm curious what each of you is looking forward to the most as we enter the stretch run.

Closure. I mean, honestly, it's, it's going to be a wacky 20 what is it 28 games uh remaining in the season um but yeah it's already it has been just such a gift such a treat to have the Giants and Dodgers play so well if if you had asked me before the season you know if in September the Giants and Dodgers are jockeying for first place i would

have said wow that's neat i guess the dodgers really fell hard i guess something must have happened where the dodgers were a 90 win team they had just a string after string of bad luck and wow the giants were able to sneak in that open window it's not like that. The Dodgers are awesome. You look at the lineup and it's good. They have Max Scherzer now. What? Like, they are so good. And the Giants, the idea that they can compete with that version of a Dodgers team is just mesmerizing.

It's just amazing to think that this Giants team can even compete with that. So it's already been such a gift. And I'm looking forward to figuring out how in the heck this all shakes out. I'm looking forward to, you know, maybe no more 16 inning games. That game was very, very odd. It was just so weird. Like, and it seemed like, you know, both managers were trying to take years off of their fans' lives in most of that game. But no, I think looking forward to getting to see what this, you know, full-strength Dodgers lineup can do over the next potentially two months,

that would be something. I'm also perversely rooting for the Dodgers to keep using new pitchers because they're already up at 38 pitchers. They used 25 different pitchers in August alone, which I think they've only reached that in like maybe six or seven full seasons before. So I'm rooting for them to just keep calling up different pitchers. Danny Duffy, I hope he gets healthy because he can add to that total. They've already set a franchise record. I want them to blow past it. And I think they can get to 50. So that's what I'm rooting for. league right now eight of the top 14 are nl west players and six of those eight are on either the dodgers or the giants so you have your harpers and you have your tatises and your sotos etc but you also have trey turner and you have max muncie and you have will smith and you have buster posey

and you have brandon crawford and you have chris Taylor. So I don't know if there's some vote splitting that will happen here or if vote splitting is even a real thing. But would any of you make sort of unbiased objective cases for any of the players on the teams that you cover? Grant, you want to go first? It's such a furry one i am not going to be unbiased but i don't think that buster posey has the at-bats the the games played brandon crawford has tailed off a little bit i will just say that uh a max muncy has been incredible but b every time i turn on the TV, Will Smith is doing something, and that guy drives me nuts. How does anyone get him out? He, to me, is as important, if not more important, than Muncie, than anyone else who might be on the Dodgers.

I think Will Smith would have a real strong consideration if I had a vote. I mean, Bryce Harper's been magical. There are so many good options. had a vote. I mean, Bryce Harper's been magical. There are so many good options. But when I look at that leaderboard, I look at Will Smith and I go, yeah, and I could give him some bonus points for being a catcher on top of that. Yeah, I think everything, everyone's sort of bunched together right now to a point where it's almost whoever has the best September, at least for like a contending team, is probably going to win. But like, if I had to guess now, I would probably pick Max Muncy for the Dodgers. But you're absolutely right on Will Smith. He's been the Dodgers' best hitter,

I think, since the All-Star break. And playing more often than he was, they were doing a pretty good job of making sure he gets rest. Because I think we've seen, especially when the Dodgers had Yosemite Grandol, and he would just play so often he'd wear down at the end of the year, and then Austin Barnes would end up starting in the playoffs. So I think they're more comfortable with Will Smith playing more. But, yeah, if he continues to hit, he could definitely make a case. Trey Turner's right there. If he keeps doing, like, amazing slides that i can't physically figure out physically how

he does it like uh maybe that stems it there it turns a tide but uh if i had to pick one now i would probably go muncie just given what he's done like all year all right should i ask this i don't know this is a ridiculous question but i should get into the the nfl spirit of this uh celebrating this single series do you guys have any predictions for for this weekend which is like probably the first time i've asked anyone for predictions about a three-game regular season series but just based on how these teams are playing and currently constructed and the pitching matchups and gabe capler saying that he doesn't anticipate having a rotation per se,

which doesn't seem like the greatest thing for a manager to say about a series. Any expectations? Who's going to win in this tale of the tape and win the season series and emerge from this weekend with the division lead? At least two of the games will be a one-run game in like the eighth inning. So that's like a given. I do think, I do think the Dodgers are going to win two out of three. And just,

just to get this on record, they're going to outscore the giants 17 to 12. Can you get more specific than that? Great. Oh man. I am talking to the two jerks who made me like put my finger on a win total for the 2021 giants not just this year but last year where you made me predict the whole pandemic and then this year you you made me say like oh i don't know 82 wins or something like that so no i'm not gonna predict

a three game series are you kidding me like there will be pain and misery and fun and you'll laugh you'll cry better than cats like i don't know it's it's it's gonna be as goofy as as any three game series i've ever anticipated yeah it's gonna be a lot of fun and last thing just getting ahead of ourselves here what's the the biggest i guess question heading into the offseason for each of these teams like biggest free agent I mean I guess the Giants already extended Crawford right but they've got Chris Bryant is a free agent for instance or the Dodgers have Corey Seager are those like the defining questions of like what do we do this winter and if so how do you see that play in that I guess Eric you could go first if

you have one yeah so I don't think it's a foregone conclusion that Seager is going to sign elsewhere just because the Dodgers traded for Trey Turner, although it probably, you know, at least help give them a backup plan if Seager signs elsewhere. But I think the bigger like situation is probably it might be Scherzer at this point, but also like low key is Chris Taylor, who's also a free agent and has been pretty indispensable for them for like five years now so i mean picking one uh i i guess i will say i think the dodgers resigning chris taylor is probably as i mean i assume they're going to resign clayton kershaw so i I will say them re-signing Chris

Taylor is probably as important a move as they're going to make this offseason. When it comes to the Giants, I am kind of assuming that they're going to re-sign Chris Bryant. I think he fits a lot with what they're trying to do as far as positional flexibility. So that would be a minor surprise if they weren't able to sign him so for me the biggest question is uh the rotation because right now the only starting pitcher under contract for next year is logan webb and it used to be in april and may i would use that as like a spooky like the only starting pitcher under contract is logan webb well now he's apparently some sort of badass so that doesn't sound as bad but they'll still need to build 80 of a rotation and whether that's re-signing kevin gosman or disc lafani or going out and trying to reinvent the wheel and get

the new version of gosman and disc lafani i don't know what they're going to do but i was surprised that they didn't get a controllable starter at the deadline like a jose barrios or someone like that even a kyle Gibson, because I figured they were going to have their cake and eat it to win in 2021, but also build for that roster up for 2022 with the rotation, because there are so many question marks there. So that's going to be the story of the off season for them. All right. Well, there's a lot of baseball to be played before anyone has to worry about that stuff. So regardless of what happens this weekend and in the rest of the season, what a gift this whole season has been in the race between these two teams. And what a gift for Dodgers and Giants fans that names. None of this underscore nonsense. Just at Grant Brisby at Eric Stephen. You can read Eric at SB Nation and at True Blue LA and you can hear him on the True Blue LA podcast. Grant, you can read at The Athletic and The Athletic Bay Area and you can hear him on the Baseball Barista podcast and Bags and Brisbane. Hopefully I hit everything there, all of the many places that people can find you.

What a gift this podcast has been, too. Thank you very much, guys. I don't know if we did any puns, as it turned out. Shocking. Sadly, yeah. All right, good talking to you. Get some sleep. Enjoy this series and the rest of the season.

Thanks so much for having us on. Woo-hoo, baseball. All right, it occurs to me that one thing we didn't mention is that if this race were taking place pre-wildcard, the stakes would be even higher, then the loser wouldn't just win a wildcard. The loser would go home. I'm not saying I miss that

or that I would want to go back to that. In general, I'm in favor of wildcards or certainly one wildcard, but as much as this kind of captures the feel of an old-school playoff race with two great teams going at it, it's not quite the same as it would have been at a time when it would have been either or. But hey, no need to diminish this. This is super exciting, just in case the Giants

and Dodgers aren't your cup of tea. And I don't know how they couldn't be, at least a little bit, if you like baseball, maybe if you're a Padres fan. But I'll leave you with an unrelated last thought here, and this is cribbing a bit from the most recent episode of the Ringer MLB show, which I would encourage all of you to go listen to. It is exclusive to Spotify, but you can listen for free if you create a Spotify account or download the app. Anyway, in that episode, Zach Cram and Michael Bauman and I ran down our wish list of things that we want to happen in the last month of the regular season. Because, as I say these words on Friday, September 3rd, we are exactly one month away from the last day of the regular season. So here's my personal top 10 list of stuff I want to see. Only two of them are Shohei Otani related.

That's going to be a battle for me here on Friday. Do I watch Dodgers-Giants? Or, at the same time, do I watch Shohei Otani pitching against the Rangers? One of those matchups has extreme playoff implications. One of them has no playoff implications. But the one with no playoff implications does have two-way Otani. Maybe I can flip back and forth. Anyway, my two Otani-related items.

I want him to have the first 50-25 season ever. 50 homers, 25 steals. He has 42 homers and 22 steals now. so he is on pace to do this and be the first player ever to do it. Forget about the pitching. No hitter has ever had a 50-25 season. His offense has flagged a little of late, so he would have to pick it up, but this is within his reach. And if he does reach it, it would be a good sign for my other hope for Otani, which is that he has one of the larger separations we have seen in recent years between the first and second place finisher in baseball reference war. So entering Friday,

he has a lead of 1.7 war over the next closest players who are Robbie Ray and Zach Wheeler. And 1.7 doesn't sound like a lot, but it actually is a lot. That would be the biggest gap between first and second since 2012 when Mike Trout led Robinson Cano actually by 2.1 war. If Otani gets to 2.2 war, it would be the biggest gap in the 30-team era. So since 1998, no one has had a gap bigger than 2.1. Since Roger Clemens led Larry Walker by 2.3 war in 1997, no one has led the second-place player by more than 2.3 since Doc Gooden in 1985 when he finished 3.4 war over Ricky. So in recent years, it's been like on average a separation of three tenths of a win between the first and second place players. Even with peak bonds, there was generally someone within a win or a win and a half of him.

Otani is up because he has played a lot. He's just accumulated so many plate appearances plus batters faced as a two-way player. And also because the Acunas and the Tatises and the Trouts of the world have missed time. So here's hoping that Otani can separate himself more than any player has since the most recent round of expansion. And here's a bonus hope for Otani. I hope he makes a put out as an outfielder. He's played eight and a third innings in the outfield this season. Hasn't had a ball hit anywhere near him. Let the man make a catch. Now my non-Ohtani-related hopes.

Here's one that is related to the Dodgers. I want Max Scherzer not to reach base as a hitter. He has failed to reach base thus far in 50 plate appearances this season. That would be the most all-time in a single season, surpassing Wei and Chen's 49 in 2016. I think it would be appropriate if, in what may be the last season of pitcher hitting, we see a pitcher hitter with a record run of ineptitude. Scherzer, who actually hasn't been that bad a hitter by pitcher standards in his career, hasn't reached base in 54 plate appearances across seasons, or 60 if you count the playoffs. I want to see some

sort of tie in the standings and some sort of tiebreaker game, whether it's Dodgers-Giants, whether it's Reds-Giants, whether it's Reds-Padres or other NL wildcard teams, I want to see someone tie. I don't get that into the convoluted team entropy scenarios where you have three-way tiebreakers or more because those just never seem to happen, but a two-way tie would be fun. I don't care so much about who gets in or what the matchups are or whether you get a Yankees-Red Sox wildcard game or a Yankees-A's or Yankees-Jays or whatever. Just give or a Yankees-A's, or Yankees-J's, or whatever, just give me a tie between someone, somewhere. I want to see Mike Trout and Jacob

deGrom, or at least one of them, return to the field and look healthy, because it's been a bummer not to have them active for so long, and it would be encouraging at least to have a sighting in an actual game. I want one more no-hitter. We've had eight this year, officially, not counting the two seven-inning no-hitters. And eight is tied with 1884 for the all-time single-season record, so let's just push it across the finish line. Let's just get one more now. So only Mickey Mantle at 36 games and Frank Robinson at 43 games are ahead of him among players 20 or younger. So he has a chance to pass Robinson. And of course, those guys did those things in 1952 and 1956, respectively. So it's already really impressive that Franco has gotten this far and tied Melot and Archie Vaughn at 33 games. But that's my getting on base streak as opposed to my Scherzer not getting on base streak. I want to see Hunter Green of the Reds throw the fastest pitch on record this season.

Of course, he has to get promoted first. We talked about that possibility with Eric Langenhagen last time. But if he does make the majors, there's a good chance that he will throw the hardest pitch this season. The hardest now is Aroldis Chapman at 103.4 or Jordan Hicks in the NL at 103.2. Green hit 104.3 in his AAA debut. So especially if he came up and pitched out of the bullpen, I think he would do it. I want to see Fernando Tatis Jr. lead the National League in home runs and stolen bases. He has a six homer lead. He is two behind

Trey Turner for the stolen base lead. If he can lead in both of those categories, he'd be the first player to lead his league in both since Chuck Klein in 1932. So it's been a while. And other than Klein, only Ty Cobb and Jimmy Sheckard in 1909 and 1903 have done it in the modern era, quote unquote. And last one, I want the league average strikeout rate to decline this year. We've seen 15 consecutive seasons with a rising strikeout rate, but we are very close to actually having a decline this year, snapping the streak at 15 seasons. And during the weekend, the MLB strikeout rate this season is 23.44% of played appearances. Last year, it was 23.39% of played appearances. So if it falls just a tad over the next month, then we will have the first decline in ages.

Despite the fact that pitchers are hitting this year and not last year, the sticky stuff crackdown has had enough of an effect that it has slightly reversed things. So it won't be a big decline, but even just to arrest the rise would be some sort of victory. So I am rooting for contact. There's a lot more stuff that I'd like to see, but those are the top 10 that came to my mind. And just a last note for you if you're looking for something else to listen to.

Back in April, I moderated a panel at the Sloan Sports Conference, and Meg was a member of the panel, along with Bill James, Sarah Gellis from the Astros, and Josh Ruffin from the Twins. The name of the panel was Sabermetrics vs. the World, Our Analytics Baseball's Answer.

It was mostly big picture stuff that probably holds up pretty well, all about the impact that analytics have had on baseball and whether they can help improve it. Evidently, it's just been released as a podcast, so I will link to it on the show page. It's also on the SSAC-MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference feed. That'll do it for today and for this week. Thanks as always for listening. You can support the podcast on Patreon by going to patreon.com slash effectivelywild.

The following five listeners have already signed up and pledged some small monthly amount to help keep the podcast going and keep it ad-free and get themselves access to some perks. M. Junt, Danny P., Alex Arkea, Leith McCandawar, and Michael Nerviani. 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 Meg coming via email at podcast at fan graphs.com or via the Patreon messaging system if you are a supporter. Thanks

to Dylan Higgins for his editing assistance. We hope you have a wonderful long holiday weekend if you are celebrating one or a wonderful regular length weekend if you are not. We will be back to talk to you early next week. We do it different on the West Coast We do it different on the West Coast We do it different on the West Coast Yay! Thanks, guys. That was a lot of fun. Thanks a lot. Yeah, thank you.

See you in hell, Eric. I really hope it's 17 to 12, just because I'm going to talk about that for years to come. That would be a good one.