Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 1751: The Playoff Matchups Draft

Episode Date: September 25, 2021

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about teams pitching around Shohei Ohtani and a second conspiracy theory about Rays/Jays Cardgate, then rank the fun quotient of potential playoff teams and draft their preferred playoff matchups. Audio intro: Steve Gunn, "Protection" Audio outro: Frankie Siragusa, "I Don’t Want to See You Again" Link to article about Ohtani’s walks […]

Calling for protection An echo clear in direction Calling for protection An echo clear in direction Echo clear direction Echo clear direction I am Ben Lindberg of The Ringer, joined by Meg Rowley of Minecrafts for a special Saturday recording. Hello, Meg. Hello. Meg, they won't pitch to my boy, Shohei.

They won't pitch to him. Very tense, late action in that Mariner's Angels game. Yeah. So the last three games for Shohei Otani, he has walked four times, three times, and four times. Four of those walks were intentional, although not all of them were intentional from the start. Like in his most recent walk, they got to 2-0 on him and then they decided to walk him, which was a controversial one because it was a one-run game and they put the tying run on base in the ninth inning, and he almost scored, but not quite. It worked out for them. But this is a record. It's an AL record all time. I would not have guessed that this was a record for the number of walks in a

three-game span, but 11 walks in a span of three games ties Bryce Harper's 2016 record, and it's never happened with an American League hitter. That's kind of incredible, really. And Harper, Bonds, and Shohei now are the only players who have walked even 10 times in a three-game span over the past 50 years. I think Reggie Jackson did it in 1969, and then there were some earlier ones who had done it, but this has not happened in a long time. At least in the AL, it's never happened, and it's barely happened, even counting Bonds and Harper. So this is almost unprecedented, and I'm kind of bummed about it because I want to see Otani get to swing away,

but getting on base is good too, I guess. Well, then the Angels should not have scheduled late September games against the potential playoff powerhouse, Seattle Mariners. Exactly. I did enjoy, I assume that you watched some of this game or at least those at-bats given that he is your guy. I really enjoyed the interplay between otani and ty france every time he ended up on first base like here we go again yep hanging out being pals

like by the end of that game he was like pet and ty france on the shoulder like here we are again friend i've missed you since the last time i appeared here yeah he seems to be handling it well as he seems to handle everything well. He's just kind of laughing about it. I mean, it must be frustrating to some extent because I know he has expressed the desire to lead the league in home runs. Yes. He's not going to really have any chance to catch up to Vlad and Salvi if he's not getting any pitches to hit or not getting any pitches at all. But yeah, the Angels have not played a non-contender since September 6th, I think, when they had a series against the Rangers. After that, it's been Padres, Astros,

White Sox, A's, Astros again, and now Mariners. And at least some of those teams have actually had some incentive to win and not to pitch to him. So I get it. I mean, there's just no one in that lineup. That lineup is just a desert at this point. The Angels, since the trade deadline, have been the worst hitting team in baseball with a 77 WRC plus. And Otani has been a part of that because he has slumped seriously in that time as well. Although at least part of that seems to be this what's happening now i don't know it's interesting because he hasn't hit like his old self lately and it's kind of funny that this rash of intentional walks and just walks in general is coming now right as opposed to when you couldn't get him out i was looking at the rolling graphs on fan graphs just going by game, and he is actually

seeing more pitches in the zone in the last month or two than he was in June or July when he was just incandescent and people were not throwing him strikes. Lately, they are throwing him more strikes, and he hasn't really chased more. But as we've've discussed he's looked a bit discombobulated and he's definitely been pulling pitches a lot more and maybe hasn't been getting pitches in his wheelhouse as often so it's tough there's just no one else in that lineup to provide any protection really so i kind of get it right yeah i think that despite the the recent slump and we should say that like would that all of our professional slumps looked like because even in that stretch he's like you know he's still running like a 98 wrc plus which is certainly not to the mvp level that he

was displaying earlier and is below average but it's like barely below average right there are definitely hitters in in the majors who are like yeah like if i have a two-month stretch where i'm hitting for a 98 wrc plus it's fine like that's the thing that happens right plus he's still pitching so you know would would that we all were shohei ohtani yeah but you know i think that to your point it's like even with the slump it's just why you, risk that he might run into one, which we know what happens when he does that when the rest of that lineup is just like, oh, the angels are pretty bad. Yeah, they really are. And there have been so many studies on lineup

protection over the years. And there haven't been a whole lot done lately that I've seen. So maybe it's time for a little update, but just going back to sort of the seminal research by Tom Tango and crew in the book. And basically they found that there is an effect that if you look at say intentional walk situations and you have unprotected situations and protected situations, you definitely get walked more if there's no protection and you also strike out more presumably because people are pitching around you. And if you're a good hitter, you're trying to hit those pitches anyway, and so you're more liable to strike out. They found that there was really no difference in actual production.

So once you put the ball in play, it seems that there is zero difference, or at least there was at the time they studied it. that there is zero difference, or at least there was at the time they studied it. So it's just that your production is coming more from OBP and maybe you're making a little less contact. So different shape of production. And I think Otani, I was looking at the live fan graph stats and the game he had on Friday, which was he didn't put the ball in play or didn't make contact even. He walked four times and struck out once. And on the day, that was like a 197 at WRC+. It's good to get on base four times, even if it's just a walk every time. So it's still productive. It's just not exactly what we want to see him do. We want to see him hit the ball a long way. And he hasn't been doing that a

whole lot lately. So I guess it's good to get on base one way or another. But he is actually pitching on Sunday. So they can't take him out of that game. The Mariners are going to have to face him one way or another. Yeah, it is interesting that he's had this slump at the plate. And then he had a start pushback because of fatigue. And then he came out and just shoved. Yeah.

So you're like, oh, is he hurt? Is something bothering him? And then you watch him pitch, and you're like, I think he's fine. Yeah, I know. Sometimes you just have an extended slump. It's like a thing that happens. Guys are streaky. Yeah, it was Phil Gosselin was hitting behind him.

You know, no offense to Phil. Oh, boy. But yeah, I mean, when you don't have Trout and you don't have Rendon and you don't even have Justin Upton. Right. And you've got Walsh, but that's back-to-back lefties. And so often they're broken up. So it's just been Phil Gosselin hitting behind behind otani lately and yeah that just uh doesn't scare you really max tassie has hit behind him really just like you know i think jack mayfield

has hit behind him this month like it is not exactly murderers row back there so do what you have to do if you're the mariners and you're trying to win every game. But hopefully we will actually see some Shohei hits and homers before the end of the season. Yeah, hopefully. We did also get one more email about a card gate conspiracy theory that we had not considered. And this is from listener Ani who writes, it's a nice idea that the Jays orchestrated this whole thing, but I don't think it really fits the circumstance. Instead, I believe this scandal was manufactured by Rob Manfred and Joe West as part of an effort to fight back against big data. Before Cardgate, no one even knew these cards existed, let alone was bothered by them.

This ongoing public crisis has brought many new voices to the fore, calling for a ban on cheat sheets on the field. All in all, I believe Alejandro Kirk was sabotaged and set up. Oh, my gosh. So the plant was not by the Blue Jays. It was by MLB or Joe West. I mean, I'm fine with this theory. If for no other reason than it might one day inspire a movie in which a brave whistleblower has to come forth and defend the honor of Alejandro Kirk and catchers everywhere.

And he will be played by George Clooney. Yeah, it has actually changed the discourse or at least brought this to attention, I think, because we had been talking about it already, the cards and whether we like them and whether they should be allowed. But I was thinking back because we were talking about this on the ring around the show too. But back in, I think it was September 2018 when Phillies reliever Austin Davis used a card on the mound, which was, I don't know if it was the first time, but that was after outfielders had started using them and maybe even after catchers had started using them.

But I hadn't really seen pitchers use them. And Austin Davis just broke out his card while he was pitching, and Joe West just reflexively confiscated it, which he had no grounds to do. And it was not against the rules in any way, but he just marched out there and took it, and Cowboy Joe'd up, and everyone kind of mocked him a little bit because it was like, oh, old fashioned, you know, regressive Joe West. He doesn't like information or whatever. And at the time I sort of sympathized with Davis, but now I'm thinking country Joe was just ahead of the game and now we've all kind of caught up to him. No, we haven't all caught up to him because some of us don't care about them using cards, Ben.

I'm going to continue to hammer this home. Like some of us really don't care. some of us don't care about them using cards ben i'm gonna continue to hammer this home like some of us really don't care some of us think it is fine some of us think they have a lot to keep track of and they they have a lot up in their brains but sometimes it's helpful to have a little cheat sheet and it's fine i can't i can't bring myself to be fussed about it i just can't and i don't think that this is like the zombie runner rule. I don't think you will persuade me. Like, I think it's fine to have notes. Be prepared. That's okay. I'm not mad about it. Yeah. I approve of being prepared. To me, it's like, have your notes, but when it's time to take the test, you got to leave your notes in your locker, right? I mean, to me, it's like going off book in a play, right? If you show up on Broadway and everyone's walking around with their script, hey, it's hard to remember all those lines. I get it. But you want to see them in the moment. You don't want to be taken out of it by the fact that they have a script, right? And I'm sort of similarly taken out of it by baseball players pulling out their cards so i want major league baseball players to be off book by the time the game begins i just don't care

about that i don't have to persuade you it's fine we can disagree yeah and as we've said before it's nice for us to do that occasionally because sometimes we're just like aren't we both so smart yeah and this is not a top priority for me either. This is not like my defining issue. There are many other problems that are bigger than this. So let's do a draft. Let's do a draft. I think that we are both, we are somewhat prepared for this draft. Yeah.

I don't know that we're off book for this draft. No. We could probably use cheat sheets for this, but we're going to do our best here. So this was a listener suggested draft. And I think it's a good suggestion. It came to us this week from listener, Amy, who wrote drafts for effectively wild groundbreaking.

However, I think it would be very fun to listen to a draft of postseason from wild card game onward matchups, either when the schedule is set or hypothetically the postseason matchups from qualified teams that you would like to see the most. Bird teams, devil magic teams, John Smoltz complains about teams, but the ratings teams, why Brewers White Sox will be the best rotations ever, teams. Anyway, I humbly submit this idea for your consideration. And we're glad that she did because I think this is a good one. Yeah. And we are not going to draft from the wild card on just because we're conscious of

how long that could take. So I think that what we have agreed to, Ben, is that we will each draft three pre-World Series matchups and then one World Series matchup. And we will, you know, we will sprinkle in our commentary and, you know, how likely John Smoltz is to be mad as we go. And you had the idea that it might be clarifying for each of us as we embark on this exercise that we have spent just a ton of time preparing for. And also for our listeners, if we listed in order our most fun playoff teams, regardless of matchup, from most fun to least fun, and we should say for folks wondering, what are you defining as a playoff team? And basically, we have decided through very scientific means that it will be the the 10 teams that are currently in a playoff position so both division and wild card and then also seattle toronto and philadelphia yes because while it you know the the the mariners and the blue jays are on

the outside looking in they are as we are recording on a Saturday, they are two games back. They are each two games back of the Yankees for the second AL wildcard. And the Phillies are five games back of the wildcard, but doing better from a division perspective. Yeah, they're a game back. Yeah, they're just a game back in the East because, God, does no one really want to win that division, seemingly. Or I think they're a game and a half back, right? Okay, yes, that's right. Yeah, as we were referring to. Two in the East because God does no one really want to win that division seemingly. Or I think they're a game and a half back, right? Okay, yes, that's right. Yeah, as we're reporting on.

Two in the last column. Yeah, so it is going to be those 13 teams that will be our pool, both of teams for listing purposes and then also for this draft. And do you want to do your list first? Yeah, sure. I imagine these will mirror each other pretty closely. Probably. I don't know, though. Maybe. Yeah. All right. Well, apologies to the A's and other teams that are technically not eliminated yet, but are looking like extreme long shots now. So here are my 13

top to bottom, most fun to least fun, or wait, would it be better to do it the other way sure yeah all right i'll go least fun to most fun cardinals red socks phillies braves astros yankees mariners rays brewers dodgers white socks giants blue jays okay so we do have some variation, although the bottom of our list is like sort of the same but for sentimentality and a penchant for chaos, so here is my list from bottom to top so I went Red Sox, Astros

Cardinals, Yankees and I gotta say, because I just love those big beef boys, you gotta pay respect to the beef boys They're always there, they've won enough, but it is just kind of fun to watch them yeah i mean we like the beef boy lineup yeah it is braves white socks phillies rays giants brewers mariners because you know we just we have to take care of some business here like we gotta we gotta be done with this we gotta be done it must be done blue jays dodgers yeah okay all right dodgers really defending champions and you're still ranking

them top of the fun list the thing about it is i really like that rotation and i also enjoy their lineup so you know when you combine those two things together you're like this is a fun baseball team to watch it is the best baseball team they're the best baseball team yeah yeah we've probably talked about this before when it was a little more hypothetical but as a semi mariners fan still do you want them to do it this year in this weird way or would it be more satisfying for them to do it as like a legitimately good team with Julio and Jared Kelnick and all of the other good prospects like actually performing the way that you want them to be like yeah which could be as soon as next season or you know in the next season or two they could

be like a legitimately really good team with all of their prospects in place and everything or they could just kind of fluke into it in a fun way, but also in a way over-performing their run differential way. Ben, I want to thank you for your question because it's an insightful one. I don't care about that part. I mean, I want to clarify both for the placement of my Mariners selection and also for the Phillies. My expectation is that should both of those clubs manage to sneak their way into the playoffs, that they will make hilariously early exits. Right. I do not think that the Mariners, the Mariners have some good elements.

And as we have talked about, and as you have just mentioned, they have some fun chaos elements. There's some weird flukiness to them that will come to play, presumably in a playoff appearance. But this is not actually an especially good baseball team. It's like you look at the rest of the AL field and they have a negative 52 run differential. This is a team that is over their skis, we might say. But here's the thing. I'm just really tired of hearing about the playoff i'm tired of it i've i've become exhausted by it it is not fun like for my family

yeah my family they want to play off baseball team my family is uh is content and aware of the fact that like should they sneak in that this team, which we have, they're plus 15 from a record perspective over their base runs record and plus 13 over their bi-tag. We know what we're dealing with here. We are aware of this team being this team, but I'd like it to be done.

You know, I'd like to, to be able to bring this era of Mariners baseball to a close. And I don't particularly need the leaders of the next era of Mariners baseball to be the ones that close that door. Like there's something kind of satisfying and poetic about a team that has, you know, I mean,

Logan Gilbert has been legitimately quite good for them and so like that's exciting you still get that little like jolt of like ha the next wave is here but i don't need like a good kelnick and julio and gilbert and like you know hancock and those get like they they don't need to close the door. There's something satisfying about Kyle Seager being able to say as he walks out of town, most likely, that is done. We have made the postseason. We will not be on any lists.

Because the thing about a playoff drought this long is that you start seeing it mentioned on broadcast for unrelated sports, right? When the NFL is bemoaning the length of a team's playoffs, like the Mariners make an appearance on that graphic because they're one of the, you know, they play in one of the major sports. And so I don't need that on my Sundays. Like my Sundays are stressful enough.

I root for the Seahawks. So anyway, those are my Mariners thoughts. Let's all move on together. Yeah. Maybe it would even take a little bit of the pressure off that young core. So anyway, those are my Mariners already got this monkey off their collective backs. And not that I think that that monkey would necessarily impair the performance of these young prospects who were like barely born the last time that the Mariners made the playoffs. But it was a mean thing that you just said. It's mean to me somehow. Maybe they would not have to hear about it constantly and answer questions about it. And yeah, I think that there is also the question of like, well, what if they made it and they snuck in

and they got eliminated in the wildcard game and they weren't even the home team in the wildcard game and so their fans haven't even gotten to see them in the playoffs. Like, does it even count? I mean, technically it counts. Yes, it counts. Oh my God. No, we're not doing this. Everybody wants to like say that the wild card isn't a playoff game.

It's not a postseason game. Guess what? When does it happen, Ben? It happens after the season ends. It is post the season. It is a postseason game. We're not doing this. It's fine for you to say like, oh, okay, it would be nice for them to give their fans a home

game and i agree with that that gives them a new lower stakes thing to be in contention for but right now we are trying to end shame and embarrassment we have much higher stakes in front of us okay we have hashed that out i will say that when it comes to like ways that you can outperform projections there's the giant's way, which we discussed yesterday, and there's the mariner's way. Those are different ways. They both lead to a lot more wins than anyone expected. One way, the giant's way, is by legitimately playing really well. There can be some luck that comes into that with health and availability and all of that, but still, you're outscoring your opponents pretty consistently and healthily.

Whereas the Mariners, it's just you're clutch, you're fluky, you've got all the timing going, whatever it is. It's chaos. And there's fun in both of those, I suppose. But I kind of, all else being equal, prefer the Gi's way of it's chaotic because no one saw it coming, but also it's like a legitimately good team and you don't have to feel like the bottom is about to fall out. At least not at this point.

Anyway, I wish you and other Mariners fans luck and good mental health in, in the next couple of weeks. So, all right. So we have ranked our team. So everyone knows where we're coming from here. next couple weeks. I just want to rest. We have ranked our team so everyone knows where we're coming from here.

I think Sam and I several years ago did that as a draft just like playoff teams we like. So we're giving you that and an additional draft here in this episode. So now we're going to just rank our preferred pre-World Series potential matchups here.

Do you want to go first? Yes, sure, I do. It sounds like you're completely prepared to do that. I'm very ready. Very ready for that. Well, I have already expressed a preference for this. And so I guess I'll just stick with my preference. I will take Toronto and Seattle as a wildcard. I guess we'll call it a wildcard matchup, mostly because I would like the seemingly immovable object that is Toronto's offense to run up against the unstoppable force that is Seattle's weird clutchness, particularly in the bullpen. As I have expressed before, my preference would be

that Seattle lose this game so that Toronto can advance because they are both legitimately good and quite fun. And I think far less like a cardiac event inducing than the Mariners are. But I have this vision in my mind of a decisive at bat that features Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Paul Seawald. Best against the best. Yeah. I mean, like, look, we at Fangraphs are committed to good players who are not at all surprising. And I think that if you were to rank your preseason favorites for that among relievers, but definitely Paul Seawald is way up there. Oh, yeah.

Famously the son of Paul Seawald Sr., great inner circle Hall of Famer. I mean, we've been watching this guy coming for a decade you know when he was 12 like he was out there you know throwing 95 and he was just hanging out in the clubhouse and everyone knew oh man this Paul Seawald he's gonna be better than

his dad even I think I mean I'm gonna present Paul Seawald's resume in a way that is really gonna drive home just how good he has been. Did you know that he has... Baseball's the best. Did you know that Paul Seawald has the same war by Fangraphs War as these luminaries of the bullpen? Cole Slesser, Aaron Loop, Andrew Chafin, and Matt Barnes.

I'm here to tell you that those are top 20 relievers in 2021, Ben. Top 20. Baseball's the best. Bullpens are the best, too. Bullpens are the best. And so I am taking that because it has a nice mix of things, right? I have previously expressed a preference for playoff games featuring teams that are legitimately good because I think that we get the best baseball,

we get the most iconic moments, or something really satisfying about good teams going head-to-head. I think that while it is hard to feel in the moment, it is useful for fans of those teams in the moving on process when one of their teams inevitably loses because we do not actually refuse to lose in baseball. There is something about being bested by a team that is just really good where you're like, look, we went head to head and we didn't come out victorious, but that was a good team.

I do think that if Toronto were in the wild card and lost to Seattle, that their fans might be haunted for a while and that the the face of that haunting might be ball z-walls um so I I think that it is generally better like for the sport and for the quality of the games that we see if we have really good teams uh butting up against each other because like anything can happen in a one game playoff right like that's that's the flukiest of the flukes it is a a format that we do not typically embrace in the sport but when you have legitimately good teams i feel like the the sense you have going in that something really weird's

gonna happen it's just lower because these are good teams and like when good teams play each other we get some good matchups but we have half of that here and then we also have chaos and so in some ways this is the perfect matchup for a one game playoff because you are representing the full force and might of toronto which is you know like a really good club and has a better run differential than you know the white socks do at this point and has really put on quite a show for us throughout the season. And then you have Chaos Ball of the Mariners. And so I think it is a good combo for one game. And then I hope that the good team emerges victorious.

So there we are. That is my first pick. It's a good one. It's obviously a long shot in that oh yeah these two teams are currently in playoff position this is why we're doing it now yeah right you know you have more fun that way when you have more options yeah and once we know what all the matchups are it's not as fun to speculate about the hypothetical ones so exactly yeah this would be a really weird one because these two teams as we are are recording, have identical records, 85 and 69.

Yes. And their expected records are more than 20 wins apart. Wildly divergent. The Jays have outscored their opponents by 164 runs. The Mariners have been outscored by 52 runs. And yet they both have 85 wins, even though depending on your record estimator, the Jays should have 91 wins according to base runs, 94 wins according to Pythagin, Pat, and the Mariners would be at 70 and 72 according to those measures. Let's go. 85 wins, both a couple of games out of a playoff spot.

25 wins, both a couple games out of a playoff spot. So, yeah, if the Yankees and Red Sox free fall over the next 10 days or whatever we got here, then it could happen. Could happen. It is technically possible. Yeah. All right. Okay. Well, I will, for my first pick, draft a matchup of two good teams, the Dodgers and the Giants. Yeah.

So, I guess the bit of a bummer here is that the Dodgers and the Giants cannot meet up in the NLCS, unfortunately. So this would have to be a division series matchup, but it would still be pretty fun. I mean, we recently devoted an entire episode to a regular season series between these two teams. So ramp it up to the playoffs and this would be a ton of fun. these two teams so ramp it up to the playoffs and this would be a ton of fun these are the two teams with the best records in baseball this year they both have legitimate claims as like actually the best teams in baseball this year i think the dodgers are the best team in baseball this year but really i mean it's been an incredible race one of the best top two division races I can recall. And to see it culminate in a playoff matchup would be a fitting capper to the whole thing.

And really, I hope that they get the chance to play each other. You know, no shots against the Cardinals here, but I kind of want to see these two teams play each other. want to see these two teams play each other. I don't want to see the Dodgers get knocked out in a single game because, you know, if the Dodgers win the wild card or whichever team wins the wild card, they're going to be the best team ever to have done that. Right. And, you know, it's, it's tough that these two teams just happen to have been in the same division. You got the two best records in baseball and only one of them can win the division. And so you're going to get a hundred plus win team, like potentially the most wins ever for a team that didn't win its division, I think, or at least, you know, you've never seen a wildcard team like this. I guess, you know, for a second place team, I know that they're both in the running or were recently in the running for possibly having the most wins ever by a second place team. I know that they're both in the running or were recently in the running for

possibly having the most wins ever by a second place team. So I want to see them both actually get to have a best of five at the very least. And to have those two teams match up, it would just be narratively satisfying and satisfying talent wise. Yeah, I think that that is, yeah, it's a great matchup. I think that it will inspire a bitterness between their two fan bases that could persist for years, you know, but I think that it will be a legitimately good one. That's a good pick.

All right. For my next pick, I am taking a matchup that we, I guess we could, yeah, we could get in the championship series. I want to take the Brewers versus the Dodgers. I enjoy the way that these teams are constituted very much because if you are to look at our leaderboards for the National League, these are the two best rotations in the National

League. By our version of award, they are separated by 0.1 wins. So they are the same from a award perspective. And I imagine we'll draft Tampa at some point. I mean, maybe. Maybe we won't draft Tampa at some point. But I just like having teams that have traditional very good rotations there is something about the starters like a narrative center to a game especially in the playoffs that i find really satisfying right you like the starter comes in and we're gonna hear all about like how good corbin burns's cutter is right we're gonna go in and we're gonna hear about max scherzer as one of the best trade deadline acquisitions and we're gonna hear about max scherzer as one of the best trade deadline acquisitions ever we're gonna hear about walker bueller and how he has emerged to this like

you know where i was sitting around last night talking about the dodgers and it's like you can just rattle off like five one starters on their team and so there's something about that that is incredibly satisfying i know that the brewers bullpen has at times been less good than you might expect, at least by war. But they still have Hader, and then you have that against the Dodgers' bullpen, which has been excellent. And then, you know, you get into these lineups, and it's like they have a weird amount of commonality in terms of how they are constituted, right? You have, like, the Dodgers' best guys being these cast offs from other teams. And like they've been Dodgers for long enough that we could probably stop talking about that.

But it's like you have, you know, you have Taylor and you have Turner and you have Max Muncy. And then you look at the Brewers and it's like they have their high profile guys, but they also have like this resplendent and resurgent willie adamas and so you get to pit those guys against one another and you know you have eduardo escobar being like i went from being on the diamondbacks to being on one of the best teams in baseball isn't that super fun and you know we're gonna sit there and like wonder what version of yelich we're gonna get and we're gonna maybe not have cody bellinger making a postseason roster. I don't know. I don't think he's playable right now. It's a problem.

So, you know, you have these two great teams that are in some ways similar and in some ways quite dissimilar. Obviously, Milwaukee cannot like match the payroll power of the Dodgers. But I just think that they are like both primed for really great narrative arcs in the postseason and like this is one of those matchups that to my mind accomplishes a rare thing in that there's not a lot here for smolts to complain about but we are also going to have fun and those things sometimes are working at cross purposes with one another but like how how could smolts be mad right he's getting a bunch of starters who are gonna throw and they're probably gonna to go deep in games and they're going to be excellent.

And he loves that. And then we're going to have a good time because those are also really great pitchers and we're going to get to enjoy that rotation. So it's like satisfying him sufficiently to like make him stop talking about some of the things that he misses the most about his era of baseball, which is the charitable way for me to describe his approach to the booth.

And then we get to be happy. Everybody wins. I mean, one of these teams won't win because that's the nature of baseball, but we're going to have a really good fun time while we're watching. Yeah. I'm sure he'd find some way to be upset about something. Yeah. I mean, he's determined. He is persistent, if nothing else. If we find persistence to be admirable, then we have to give that one to Smoltz. Yes. I mean, they are both pretty progressive analytical teams, so there's that. I guess they shift a lot, maybe.

Well, the Dodgers shift a lot. The Brewers actually don't shift so much anymore, which is kind of interesting. But yeah, they're both obviously terrifying playoff teams for their opponents. Just, I mean, the Dodgers are the best team in baseball, I think, whatever their record ends up being. And the Brewers are really just the prototypical intimidating playoff team in the fact that they have the incredible top of the rotation and then they have the incredible back of the bullpenpen which is not

something the dodgers have to the same extent it's not bad but that's kind of been one of the constants during this dodgers run is that sometimes the bullpen can be a little shaky or doesn't give you as much confidence as the rest of the roster whereas you look at the back of the brewers pen and man it doesn't really get any easier after their aces leave the game. So yeah, they'll have to see how much can we use those guys. And that's why they've been trying to use them somewhat sparingly down the stretch because they had that division locked up. And so there's some question about how much is left in the tank with all these pitchers who have pitched more than they've ever pitched before.

But it's great that they're all healthy and intact as we speak because the last time the Brewers played the Dodgers, they were not at full strength, right? They did not have Burns and they did not have Devin Williams, right? So this is the real Brewers and the better Brewers and a good defensive team too. And yes, I agree. This is a fun matchup.

But my next matchup is maybe sort of an obvious one, but we have to have it, I think. Yankees-Red Sox. If this happens, then your first pick can't happen. But Yankees-Red Sox in a wildcard game, I mean, I have to hand it to them. That would be pretty compelling. I think I know that most of the country hates at least one of these teams, if not both, but there is something to the heel aspect of it too. I guess if both teams are heels to some degree, then you're going to end up with a heel winning either way. I know everyone's sort of sick of these teams because the Yankees are always at least competitive and the Red Sox have won a lot of World Series lately. So I get it. If you're sick of these teams, fine. But look, it still is a great rivalry and a storied and historic rivalry. And the rivalry has not been at its height in recent years because the two teams have not been at their best at the

same time for a little while but if they meet up in a wild card game which would be a first i mean that brings you back to like playoff tiebreakers and everything i mean it would be pretty exciting i think just the playoff atmosphere wherever that game would be played, it would be pretty wild and loud and raucous. And I'm kind of into it. And in a whole seven-game series, maybe it would be tiresome of all of the stuff about the highlight packages of the previous matchups and Aaron Boone and Bucky Dent and on and on. But for a single game, I can stomach all of that just because the stakes would be so high. I don't want it at all.

Okay. I don't want it at all. I'm sorry. I mean, I respect your choice. I think all of those are fine points, but we can embark on a new thing. And I realized that I put the Dodgers at the top of my fun list, so you might say, hey, hey Meg what are you talking about but

it's my list I get to express my preferences yeah no that's fine I disagree let's see well in the spirit of the email I am going to that inspired this draft I am going to take the the devil magic matchup

and I'm flubbing a little bit here I'm acknowledging that. As I said on our last episode, we are not in an even year. And so we cannot have even year bull from the giants. But what is time right now, right? Like if the last two years have taught us anything, it's that time is an artificial construct

and we never know when we are. We never know because we're living through a worldwide catastrophe. 2020 didn't count. It didn't count. So I am taking the Giants versus the Cardinals. Okay. Wow.

Which I find quite unlikely. Well, I guess it could be our wild card matchup, right? I'm not going to specify whether this is the wild card matchup or if in this scenario the Giants have won the West and the Dodgers have been ousted in the first round. I guess that would be the most devil magic possible route to this matchup is to have them emerge from the wildcard game and for Dodgers fans to look around and be like, what just happened to us? This is perhaps similar to my first pick in that the Giants are legitimately good. And I don't know what the Cardinals are, except a team that I, like, the last week have been like,

oh, I guess I got to, like, watch some Cardinals game and check in on these guys, because I didn't think that they were going to be playoff relevant at all. And then here they are. But they have some things to recommend to them, you know, if you're not totally sick of seeing St. Louis in the postseason. First of all, we have a new generation of fans who can get used to devil magic.

They're like, what is this devil magic? We haven't really heard of it before. We haven't seen it in action. It is a thing of myth. Then they could get their playoff pools just real messed up. You have good Adam Wainwright, but we have, you know, you have like good Adam Wainwright, who's 10,000 years old. He's like as old as Methuselah. I can say that because I am also as old as Methuselah. Um, you know, you have Jack Flaherty coming back from

injury and we don't know what that's going to look like. Um, but you can, you can have the potential for like a nice redemption narrative for him after a season that has sort of been derailed by injury it's like maybe we get like a really dominant postseason jack flaherty like we saw in was that 2019 again what is time yeah it was 2019 right where he had that crazy year and then he was like good in postseason anyway and then you know we have these guys as we've discussed recently who have been sort of on a tear lately in a way that's really satisfying right so you have like good second half paul goldschmidt and then you have you know nolan arenado and tyler o'neill

you know the the postseason is is lousy with former mariners so maybe they they're sneaking in in a spiritual sense even if they don't actually make it. And, you know, I just want to hear every broadcast of the postseason say Lars Neutbar. Oh, yeah. Lars Neutbar. How does he not have like an energy bar endorsement yet? Right? Like, shouldn't he be shilling? On the notes, I guess.

But yes. He should be shilling like Lara bars or, you know, it has to have bar in the name. But like, Lars, get your agent on that. Because I think that you have the option to be like, I'm Lars Neus Bar. Here's my favorite nut bar. Like, come on, that copyrights itself. I guess he has to be better at baseball to get the big endorsement deals. But being on the playoff stage and shining at some big moment, that might be what does it.

Yeah. Matt Carpenter continues to exist, which I am shocked by every time I look at the Cardinals roster resource page. So yeah, I think let's get this ragtag group of recent and former All-Stars together and see what they can do one more time. I don't think I need to say much more about the Giants because you seem to have covered that well. yeah, let's have the all... It can't be the devil magic matchup because that seems to be putting your thumb on the scale for one side's kind of matchup. Magic, rather.

It's the magic matchup. It's the magic matchup. It's the we're doing this again matchup. Maybe that's what it is. Maybe that's actually the... It's like we are stat people, but we are curious about the paranormal every time we have to encounter these teams at the playoffs. We both watch and love the X-Files.

That's true. It's true. We do love that. Maybe I'll re-watch X-Files. Anyway. That's always a good idea. Yeah. Well, up to a certain point.

Yeah. So I think, yes, it's a pretty good pick. And some of the Cardinals, like, look, I would be into like the Wainwright, Yachty, Battery, you know, like they're kind of especially Yachty is sort of like in the Jeter zone where like he's a legitimately great player. abilities are so venerated and perhaps so exaggerated at times that even though he is legitimately great, you're sort of sick of hearing about it. And I get why Cardinals fans are like so into Yadier Molina. I would be too if I were a Cardinals fan, but everyone else is like, all right, we get it already with the Yadier. He's very good and all. But between that and sort of attributing these powers to him, which he may possess, but are sort of difficult to demonstrate. And the fact that he's been in the playoffs plenty of times because the Cardinals have been really good. It's like, all right, well, these guys again, whereas if they were on some team that had been bad all this time, and they were making this run at this advanced age and, you know, climbing the leaderboard of all time starts as a battery and all of that, then there'd be some great sentimental value to it. And I know it's not their last season.

They'll both be back next year. But still, I think it would be sort of nice to see them. And there are other interesting players on that team. And it's not just the old guys. You've also got the new guys and the new breed who are good. So, OK, I'm with you. I was actually going to take Dodgers Brewers with my third pick. They were third on my board and you have taken them from me.

So with my third pick, I will take Rays Jays. Yeah. So Rays Jays, you have the intrigue of Kiermaier card, Kate, was spilling over into the playoffs. Don't know if there would be further reprisals or beanballs or what, or bad blood, or whether there would be discussion about scouting reports and whether they had been just burned, their intelligence has been compromised, whether that would come into play at all in this series. Even if not, that gives you a little off the field juice to this, but you don't even need that because these are two pretty exciting teams in different ways. And I know there's always an October conversation about the Rays and their aesthetics and all of that. And I get it. And yeah, we were just talking about how it's nice to have a starting rotation-centric playoff series,

and that's not what you're going to get with the Rays. But you are still going to get some young, exciting players in their first trip to October. You're going to get Wander Franco, whose on-base streak is still intact, as we speak, at 40 games.

And you're going to get potentially Shane Boz just burning through the playoffs on base streak is still intact as we speak at 40 games and you're going to get potentially Shane Boz just burning through the playoffs after having just made his major league debut, which is always fun in a Francisco Rodriguez, David Price type way, speaking of the Rays. So that would be a lot of fun. And then the Blue Jays, I mean, they were my top team on my playoff funness ranking. So you know that I think the Jays are fun. And the Jays, obviously, we talk about the lineup a lot. And coming into the year, the pitching was the concern, particularly the bullpen over, I don't know, the second half. I mean, quite a while now when you have Alec Manoa in that rotation now and you have Robbie Ray having a potential Cy Young season and you have Ryu. And I mean, that's a deep group and a good group. And so you are getting at least some starting rotation-centric action in this series.

And maybe it's a battle of a very good bullpen versus a shakier bullpen. And I didn't even mention Jose Barrios is in this rotation too. I mean, that's a pretty solid top of your staff. And we know about the lineup and you can't talk enough about that. So yeah, Rays, Jays, and even the Rays have been a better offensive team than we generally think of them being this year. So there's that too.

I like Rays, Jays. Rays, Jays is good. Rays, Jays is good. Now I have to really think about my World Series pick, don't I? Well, yeah. I mean, I've got, I actually, I prepared six pre-World Series matchups because I was thinking we were each drafting three.

Oh. We don't have to do that. But if you have any others that you want to mention. Oh, sure. There are a couple I were not formally drafting them because I feel like, I don't know if you felt this way, but the intro league matchups in many cases are more compelling to me than the potential interleague matchups. It seems like, not that the World Series is going to be a letdown or anything, but it seems like the ones that I'm most excited for, the potential matchups, are actually pre-World Series as opposed to World Series. Well, and it's interesting to me like who i'm i'm just less

compelled by like i you know i don't really find the astros super compelling for whatever reason even though they have pieces that are obviously compelling and they are a good baseball team it's not like they're a bad baseball team but there's just that that's not really grabbing me i've already expressed my dismay for yankees, Red Sox. I do love that I put St. Louis 11th on my list of fun, and then I ended up drafting them. That's a classic Meg draft move. I like the idea of watching.

You know who we're disrespecting so far in our draft, who we should perhaps not disrespect is the White Sox and i think that this is because they have they have not been like as good of late right they have struggled of late and so it has been it has been less compelling but like let us let us put some shine on the chicago white socks who you know whatever else you might say about like you know some of the like maybe their manager like maybe you're like not compelled by the manager. I find their rotation to be kind of forgettable lately, which is funny as a Lance Lynn stan

and as someone who has enjoyed Carlos Rodon's resurgence, but that lineup is super fun. We should take a moment to appreciate that lineup, which is quite fun and quite good. They're a team that has the potential take a moment to appreciate that lineup, which is quite fun and quite good. And, you know, they, they're a team that has like the potential for late inning bench heroics in the form of Billy Hamilton, right? We could get either great base running heroics or an incredible defensive play. He's had a couple of those this year. So they have that apart from they're just big boppers who we love. We love big beef boys. And you know what? We have not talked about how the White Sox,

the original beef boy lineup, they have some beef boys in their lineup. Yes, they do. So we got that. We got that bullpen. That bullpen is so fun. Oh my gosh, yes. So I'm here to say to the White Sox fans listening,

I appreciate that we disrespected your team and I'm here to remedy it because I think that watching Liam Hendricks close out postseason games would be awesome. Cause he's going to be so fired up and have so many feelings. Maybe they'll Mike him again and he can pretend that it's not working. One of the highlights of the season. Let us not forget.

Like that was wonderful. That was fantastic. So, and you know, I think that like Aaron bummer should have a great postseason moment just to, like, get out from under his own name. Yeah, I was actually going to take White Sox Jays as my next matchup if we were continuing the draft. And I think it's one of the downsides of the fact that we've all been paying attention to the wildcard races and some of the wildcard races have been good. That's great.

But that means that we're all, like like talking about the Phillies a lot. Right. You know, like we're talking about teams that are just not that great, but the races are more compelling as opposed to, say, the White Sox or the Brewers, like legitimately really good and interesting and fun teams that just, you know, they've had their division sewn up for so long that there just hasn't been a whole lot of reason to talk about them on a day-to-day basis. But yes, the White Sox are wonderful. And I was going to take White Sox and Jays just because like the

position player course of those two teams. Yeah. Hard to beat. Yeah. And these teams, I guess they kind of mirror each other because they both made it back to the playoffs last year for the first time in a while. But that was seen as like just sort of the start of something and hopefully a long run where they would be making the playoffs perennially. And just, yeah, I mean, to see Tim Anderson and Moncada and Luis Robert and Jose Abreu and Andrew Vaughn and Yasmani Grandal and Eloy Jimenez, just on and on. And then them going up against Guerrero and Simeon and Bichette and Curiel and Springer and Hernandez. And oh, my gosh.

I mean, it's just riches just up and down those lineups. So that would be a ton of fun. just up and down those lineups. So that would be a ton of fun. And I have to say, I didn't appreciate until recently just sort of how star-crossed a franchise the White Sox have been, historically speaking, because just really one of the most mind-blowing fun facts I've encountered lately, not fun for White Sox fans, but this is the first time

that they have ever made the playoffs in back-to-back seasons. That's incredible. Yes. This has back-to-back seasons. Yes. That's incredible. Yes. This has been a team since 1901. Yes. Yes. I felt sort of bad for White Sox fans because their curse breaking was kind of overshadowed by the Red Sox and then the Cubs, right?

Everyone remembers, oh, the Red Sox, oh, the curse, they finally broke it. The White Sox had a really, really, really long World Series drought too, and they broke it in 2005. And it was kind of like, oh, yeah, I mean, that's kind of cool too. Like, I guess they didn't have a Billy Goat or a Bambino or whatever, but that just didn't really seem to get the same sort of attention. And maybe it was because that was not like a dynastic type team and obviously didn't make the playoffs in 2006. And so it seemed like maybe it was more of a one-off, even though that was a fun team in a lot of ways. And yeah, when you talk about franchises that have had a hard time of it, the White Sox, 120 seasons, this is their 11th playoff appearance. I mean, 120 seasons, this is their 11th playoff seasons. That was lower than any other franchise. And maybe it's improved slightly because they've gone two out of three since then. But really, it's not great. It's one of the worst records. And another tweet in this thread at the time was that of the 16 teams that have existed for at least 100 years, the White Sox have the fewest playoff appearances with nine. The next lowest are Baltimore and Cleveland with 14 apiece in the same timeframe. So the White Sox are up to 11 now. That's still bad. That's still really bad. So White Sox fans can't take these things

For granted they gotta make the most Of the playoff appearances they have And I don't know if it's just like they're Overshadowed by the Cubs or whether it's just Like we overlook the Midwest Or whatever it is but We gotta give the White Sox more Credit for having long suffering fans

And they have to make These playoff appearances count this was their first central title since 2008 yeah like you know that's not forever but that's a while especially when you think about like how mediocre that division has been in stretches like the fact that this is just the first one since then is like pretty remarkable and here i am saying that they've been bad of late and bad is too strong. They just haven't been quite as dominant, but like they actually have been quite good

in the second half. So I, you know, I should shush myself. The only other matchup that was on my list of six was Astro's Blue Jays. I know I'm maybe a bit higher on Astro's funness than you are. And I know a lot of people are sick of the astros and don't wish them well but it's not that i'm anti-astros i want to make that clear i just for whatever reason have not felt myself like grabbed by them um in particular

this this year even though as i said there are like players on that team who i i really like and find to be great fun and like there's you know there's definitely a a narrative that one could construct about a return to the playoffs for them and i'm just not trapped i find myself uncompelled yeah that's understandable i would want to see them play each other because these are the two best hitting teams in baseball i mean they have the two highest wrc pluses of any teams. And also they have, I guess if you exclude pitchers from that, the Giants actually vault ahead of Toronto in between the Astros and the Blue Jays. But maybe we don't appreciate just how good the Astros lineup is

because they don't have Vlad in there. But really, that lineup has been just great. We talked about Kyle Tucker recently and how he has really taken his place alongside the Altuves and Bregmans and Alvarez's and Brantley's, et cetera. That is, I mean, just watching them just really savage Shohei Otani recently, it's like, oh, this is, I mean,

you can't get these guys out. The other nice thing about it is that the Blue Jays and Astros have the two highest contact rates or lowest strikeout rates in baseball. So you would see a lot of pitches put in play, which would be nice and an interesting change for October when you tend to see a lot of strikeouts. So that's why that would be fun, I think. And I get it if anyone is like, we don't even want to see the Astros. There are some who might have fun rooting against the Astros, perhaps. But yeah, I think it would be kind of fun. Yeah, I think that that is right.

I agree. World Series? Sure. All right. Who you got? Ben, I think that that is right. I agree. World Series? Sure. All right. Who you got? Ben, I don't know. I'm going to take, well, I suppose it makes, I should make this somewhat logically consistent, right?

I should select among the teams in my matchups, because otherwise, what am I doing? I'm going to take, Manfred would hate this so hard. I'm going to take Milwaukee versus Toronto. Yeah. I think that that's what I want. I think that this satisfies a number of criteria for me. It puts two good teams with strong rotations

against one another. It gives us some variety, right? Because we don't have the Dodgers repeating in a World Series matchup. We get to watch the Brewers instead. It will allow us to move on from a long and sort of perhaps under-discussed World Series drought, right? Their only World Series appearance came in 1982 as a franchise for the Brewers. You know, they've never won a World Series.

So we have the potential for them to tick that box. And we would talk about that, I would imagine, a lot in the course of this. We would get to see that fearsome Toronto lineup trying to navigate the Brewers rotation, which would be great. the Brewers rotation, which would be great. We'd have the potential for, you know, the seminal moments to involve like Guerrero or Simeon against, you know, Hayter or Devin Williams. Like we have so many fun individual matchups. And then, you know, sort of when we break down the units of these teams, we would have fun matchups. I think that it's like, you know, we're concentrating the World Series in this little swath of two countries they're like smooshed right against each other so

i think that i want the brewers versus the blue jays and i'm not just saying that because this would be a fangraphs world series you know it would um it would mean that we have two Fangraphs alums teams represented, which is fun. Now, we would get that if Tampa manages to make their way back. And Jeff, we love you, but you just got to go. So let's let other guys go. We should have some new guys. So I think that that's what I want. And I don't think that Milwaukee's presence there would make Rob Manfred happy at all.

And I'm not saying I root for him to be unhappy but i would say that a diversity of different kinds of teams whatever that may do for the ratings i think is good for the game because you know we we are well one half of this podcast is opposed to the trite easy matchup of red sox versus yankees one half says no no sir we shall do a different thing. So here we are. I'm a man of the people. It's what the people want. It's what some people want.

It is not what all the people want. It is what some people who express that. More people want than other things. They're all Yankees and Red Sox fans, but there are a lot of those. Is it that there are so many or is it that some of them are very vocal oh it's definitely a combination of both it's both things yeah it's definitely both well my topic is sort of along similar lines and i guess it's the upset that i'm the one picking the mariners in a world series match up here but viewers mariners mariners would be a matchup of two franchises that have never won a World Series. These teams have been around since the 70s. I guess teams that have been around for a really long time.

I think it would be kind of cool if we were guaranteed a team winning a World Series for the first time in the World Series matchup. And that would happen here. And I know that if the Mariners make it to that point, then they will have continued to do what they did during the regular season, which is just break baseball and do things that they should not have been able to do and get all of the clutch hits and cluster their run scoring and their run allowing in the perfect way. And at that point, there will seem to be some sort of aura around them. And that could be kind of fun too.

Like ultimately, I tend to want talented teams to be playing and to be rewarded for their talent. But you know what? If the Mariners make it, then I will just have to say, well, this is just one of those weird years. And maybe every now and then it is good to have something completely out of nowhere.

I'm watching Foundation. I just wrote about Foundation. Is that good? It's worth watching, I thought. I like so many of the people in it. Yes. Yeah. If you know anything about the book series, it's very difficult to adapt.

I think they did a decent job of doing that, but it does still have some inherent flaws that are ported over from the book. It looks incredible incredible. So I sort of enjoyed it. They really went for it. But I bring that up just because, and I slipped in a little Foundation reference yesterday when I said that being a spoiler was the last refuge of the incompetent. But today I will note that in Foundation, everything is predictable and you have math that can tell you how large masses of populations are going to behave over the millennia, but you can't predict individuals very well. And sometimes individuals will surprise you and you'll end up with a crisis. And that's what the Mariners winning the World Series would be.

It would be sort of a Selden crisis. But these things have to come along every now and then just to spice things up a little. So that would be fun. I think it would be weird, but it would be fun. I mean, I think it would be fun for the baseball. I think it would be fun for listeners of this podcast to see me interact with the

notion of a world series mariners team i don't know if it would be fun for me but it would be fun for listeners of the podcast yes i think that if the mariners make the world series what am i willing to oh no am i gonna pull a am i to pull a mince and say something I regret? You're going to bike somewhere or walk somewhere. No, I'm not going to do that. I'm realistic about my both desire, capacity, and time to do what Jake did, which

is I don't want to do it. I don't have time to do it and I don't know that I could do it. I'll say this, Ben, if the Mariners make the World Series, they don't even have to win. But if they were to sneak into the playoffs and if they were somehow and probably to wind their way through a far superior American League field, I'll buy a Paul Seawald jersey.

I'm going to do it. I'll buy one. And then I'll have a story to tell. You know, we like telling stories around here. So I think that that's reasonable. I like very much the idea of a team that has not won a World Series ever being guaranteed to win one just amongst the two. I am not enjoying the idea of like, oh, God.

I can't imagine poor Jared Kilnick being like, you know, I had a good September. Oh, yeah. Like, I found my feet, and I'm maybe going to be okay. And then that guy has to deal with, like, Brandon Woodruff and Brett Anderson. He'd have to go up against Josh Hader probably at least one time, and it would just be demoralizing.

Like, that Mariners lineup against this, it would be be really i mean it would be quite fun for brewers fans but um yeah i think that as much fun as it is to envision they're like clutch hitting and and good clustering persisting i think that you know i think that like corbin burns would have something to say about that but hey hey, and we get, oh, oh, here's another reason it would be great. You'd have Freddy Peralta against the Mariners. He was a Mariner. True. I mean, he wasn't a Mariner.

He was in their system, but you'd have that, which would be torturous for Mariners fans to deal with. So it's like, yeah, I mean, I think that this is very improbable, but it would be fun. Hunter Strickland was a Mariner for a minute. How is Hunter Strickland still? Anyway, I like it. I think that we've picked well.

I don't know that we've picked in a way that lends itself to us ending up seeing what we've picked. Yes. But that's not the point of this exercise, really. That's a boring way to do a postseason draft is to pick probabilistically. That's not what we're here to do. We're here to have some fun.

I think that some of these matchups would really annoy John Smoltz. Some of them would placate him, so then he'd be less annoyed. And I think both of those are probably okay as outcomes. Second on my board, I think, was those are probably okay as outcomes second on my board I think was was Brewers Rays oh yeah sort of along similar lines I guess that would probably make Smoltz more mad just to have the Rays in there but that would also be a matchup of teams that have not won

a World Series although the Rays obviously have not been around as long as the Mariners. But this is somewhat more likely to happen than the Mariners. But also, like, there's a lot in common between these two teams. Like, there are a lot of front office people who have worked for both the Brewers and the Rays. Not that that's, like, super intriguing for most people. And they've made trades. I mean, the Adamas trade, right? You know, that was sort of a trade that helped set up this Brewers run. And you can't say that it was like a mistake for the Rays. They have

Wander Franco. They have other great shortstops just to slide in there. That's why they were willing to give up Adamas. But they have made trades. They've had some of the same players and personnel. And so we've talked about them individually, but I think it would be an interesting matchup, one versus the other. Who else have we just respected? Did we bring up? We didn't talk about Atlanta at all.

No, we didn't. And the Phillies and- Oh yeah, that's a chaos pick for me. So I feel like the spirit of the Phillies, but like a more deranged version of the spirit is present in the mariners of this draft but you know philly philly is only allowed as far as i'm concerned to make the postseason see this is the problem it's like they can't make the wild card their their odds of getting in are really predicated on them being able to take overtake

atlanta in the east and then we'd have a whole series of Philly, and that might be too much of the chaos energy that might turn us off of baseball. So we didn't really talk about Philly or Atlanta. And the Red Sox, they wear those uniforms the whole stupid time. That's disqualifying. I mean, they're really insistent. It's like, are you the Bruins? Who are you?

Do you think you're the Chargers? You're playing a different sport. Like, what are we doing here? Yes. Yeah, we didn't talk a whole lot about the Red Sox or the Yankees, although I drafted their matchup. Beef boys, beef boys. We've talked enough about them prior to this episode probably.

And I did just in my capacity as apparently the person who's like drafting the best ratings matchups because I'm looking out for MLB rights holders and the MLB office here. But I did have Dodgers Astros on my World Series board. I mean, you know, maybe it would be tiresome to have to rehash the whole science doing thing for the umpteenth time. But maybe it would allow us to move on. Maybe, yeah. Maybe we need to do that one more time. Maybe we need to get it out of our collective systems. Like maybe that's the answer is to just be like, you know, we have hashed this out and we have.

But, you know, we have hashed this out and we have, I will say though, that I think the only way that we end up moving on in that scenario, like collectively, is if the Dodgers emerge victorious. Because if it's the Astros, we have to play it back again until we get a different outcome. So maybe it would not actually help very much at all. Yeah. I mean, these are two teams that have won World Series and been in World Series recently enough that that aspect of things doesn't really come into play here. But they are also, I think, the best teams in their respective leagues. And I do enjoy the World Series just being the best caliber baseball in the signature series. You know, I kind of like that. And they are both really great teams in different ways. So, yeah, I felt obligated just to toss that out there. Sure. Yeah, I think that that's fair.

Are we missing any other really excellent matchups here? I don't know. I think that I'm coming around to your conclusion that the juiciest potential is before the World Series, although I really do like that Milwaukee-Toronto thing. So, you know, Carson,

get on it, man. Like, what? You're not working hard enough? That's so mean. He's working very hard. Yeah, you'd have an August Fagerstrom versus Carson Sestouli matchup there. A lot of potential for Fangraphs alums here going toe-to-toe, head-to-head,

card-to-card. Alright, well this was fun. Thanks to Amy for the suggestion. Glad we did this. Over the next week-ish we will see what matchups we actually end up with, at least for the initial draw. And we will keep watching all of these series with playoff implications. And we will watch to draw at least three walks in three consecutive games since Barry Bonds in 2003. And no AL player had done it since Ray Durham in 2000. Which again, like it doesn't sound like that much to me.

Three walks in three consecutive games. It seems like Juan Soto walks three times every game to me. But apparently not. every game to me, but apparently not. And the only people who have ever walked three times in four consecutive games are Babe Ruth in 1930 and Mickey Mantle in 1957. So I sort of hope that Otani doesn't match them. But if he did, I guess that would be just one more historic thing he did this year. And we'll get to see him pitch at least on Sunday. I just hope that you're squirreling all of these away so that when you have to write the no really Otani is the AL MVP column, you just have them ready. Yeah, I think it's all emblazoned on my brain at this point.

Stuck up here. All right. So we will end there. Well, as I sit here watching the Cardinals complete a 3-2-5-4-2-8-6 double play to preserve a one-run lead. Normal stuff. That'll make it 15 wins in a row. Wanted to mention one note about the poor Padres. On some recent episodes, we talked about Jake Arrieta

and how the Cardinals were relying on him and whether that was partly because they couldn't make a waiver trade because those rules changed and so they were limited to picking up pitchers that other teams had discarded. Well, listener Joseph looked into that. He says, I pulled RetroSheet transaction data from 2000 to 2019 and found 50 starting pitchers for the acquiring team moving after the waiver deadline, and it really looks like Arrieta is significantly worse than the sort of pitcher you'd historically have expected to be able to acquire. Looking at these numbers, it looks like the median waiver wire

starting pitcher is a replacement level pitcher. If you extrapolated to 162 innings pitched, the mean pitcher would give.09 war and median.18 war, and roughly 60% of pitchers produce within a rounding error of replacement level. So that's why we were joking that Arrieta was breaking replacement level, because the assumption is that you're supposed to be able to go out and get a replacement level player when you need one. And in the past, that's been true. It's almost tautological. Arrieta, by contrast, performed worse than all but two of those pitchers.

Basically, he turned an average team into a replacement level team. From another angle, Arrieta was worth eight runs below replacement level. If you subtract those eight runs from those four Padres games, the Padres at worst turn two losses into ties and at best get an extra two wins in one tie. So the cost of lacking the waiver wire to get a replacement level pitcher could be roughly 0.6 wins, that's wins above replacement, or one to two and a half wins using real world outcomes, which is an obvious oversimplification.

Now that's factoring in how Arrieta actually pitched for the Padres. I was kind of curious about how he compared to other previous pitchers picked up after the July 31, 15 innings pitched, he's behind Mark Redman in 2007, who had been released by the Braves in May, and Edinson Volquez in 2013 put up a similar performance to Arrieta, but Baseball Reference thinks Arrieta was slightly worse with the Cubs. Eight of 50 players had previous major league experience but hadn't played in the majors that season. So he is saying that Arrieta, both before and after the pickup by the Padres, was far worse than you could expect to get late in a typical pre-2020 season. So maybe that just means the Padres made a big mistake with Arrieta, or maybe it just means that no one better was available, in part because the rules prevented picking up a superior pitcher. I'll put Joseph's list of

pitchers on the show page. Thanks to him for checking that out. So that will do it for today and for this week. Thanks, as always, for listening. You can support Effectively Wild on Patreon by going to patreon.com slash effectivelywild. The following five listeners have already signed up to pledge some small monthly amount and help keep the podcast going, help keep the podcast ad-free, and get themselves access to some perks. Thank you. 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 podcastatfangraphs.com or via the Patreon messaging system if you are a supporter. Thanks to Dylan Higgins, as always, for his editing

assistance this week and for doing some editing assistance on a weekend. We hope you have a wonderful remainder of your weekend and we will be back to talk to you early next week. I didn't have to play at being brokenhearted I hear that love is glad How can I understand When someone says to me I don't want to see you again I don't want to see you again. I don't want to see you again.

I don't want to see you again.