Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 1756: Ichabod Crane Comes to Bat

Episode Date: October 8, 2021

Meg Rowley and guest co-host Eric Longenhagen banter about Walker Buehler’s unusual approach to opening beers and their own past dental emergencies before recapping the AL Wild Card game. They consider what went wrong for the Yankees, and assess the Red Sox’s good starters, potent lineup, and shaky defense, as well as Nick Pivetta and […]

I braved treacherous streets and kids strung out on homemade speed And we shared a bed in which I could not sleep It all was worth it Hello and welcome to episode 1756 of Effectively Wild, a Fangraphs baseball podcast brought to you by our Patreon supporters. I'm Meg Rowley of Fangraphs, and I am joined today by Eric Langenhagen, also of Fangraphs, our lead prospect analyst. Eric, how are you? I'm great. I'm at the field like every day, almost all day, which is the whole reason I do the job I do. And so I'm great. Well, we will talk a little bit toward the back half of this episode about the Arizona Fall League,

yet another field for you to make your way to in the coming months. But before we do that, we are going to talk a bit about the happenings in the wildcard round as a way to sort of start talking about the division series. As we are recording this on Thursday morning, we are mere hours away from the start of the White Sox and Astros ALDS. We'll get Tampa and Boston a little later in the afternoon. We'll probably spend the bulk of our time talking about the AL side of things and tackle

the NL in a later episode. But before we do that, I just, I don't know if you saw this. Did you see Walker Buehler opening beers, twist beers with his teeth? I didn't because my online diet is very different from yours. So I didn't. It took me, it took you telling me about it for me to know that it happened and i still haven't seen it yeah he uh there's video of it there's well i saw it in in gif form and i think that when um when this gif was taken it was perhaps meant to convey the the intensity of max scherzer who even in a a post-celebration locker room with beers and goggles and just revelry happening all around him, did look his usual intense self, because I guess we

can only ever be ourselves. But in the corner of that image is Walker Bueller taking a Bud Light, I assume, and twisting the cap off with his teeth. And I would like to preface this by saying this is in no way an actual controversy. It is a thing that seems like a really good way to chip your tooth, though. And as someone who's due to go to the dentist, it filled me with some anxiety. Have you ever had a tooth injury? Have I ever had a tooth injury? What's the worst dental procedure you've ever

had done? I guess having some of my wisdom teeth taken out was probably the worst thing. I've been fortunate in my dental health. I did not require orthodontic intervention as a young person. And so I was spared some of the worst sort of scraping and prying and pushing around of your teeth. Having my wisdom teeth out was not the best. And then at the end, after they had had to numb me up pretty good and break up one of my teeth, sorry to our listeners who might be eating while they're listening to this, the dental assistant asked me, well, do you want to see it? And I said, no, I don't. That's supposed to be in my body. And as soon as it's out of my body, it's not a thing that I need to engage with or grapple with. I tend to be kind of squeamish about these things. So I think that's the worst that I've encountered from a dental perspective. But it just seems like you're asking for a chipped tooth right before you have to hopefully go on a long playoff run if you're twisting beer caps off with your teeth.

I think, you know, in the sponsored celebration, you know, I'm seeing the gif of it now, right? And like, look, you know, intelligence is not a prerequisite for playing professional baseball. You just, but I'm looking at the daughter's locker room thing now and it's like, look at the Bud Light signs everywhere. Like really, none of this is sacred at all. No no i guess if i had to decide between drinking bud light and tasting

that the bottle it came in it would be sort of a decision but yeah like look at i'm you know also looking at walker bueller's body like good for you bro yeah uh he's in good shape and not a not a follicle of hair on him so good good for you. Smooth like a seal. I'll tell you that like I did have, I had a graft at one point. I had like gum recession from grinding my teeth at night. And like my gums started to recede and they had to like cut skin from the inside of my cheek. And then like sew it to where my gum line is. That sucked.

And the drugs they gave me coming off of it were incredible. And I had like a, apparently, I was pretty young at this point. I was like a late teen and living at home. And which is like, you know, amazing that I was that stressed out that I was grinding my teeth at night at that age. But like, I apparently had like a sexual encounter with the refrigerator while high on, you know, whatever they gave me after I had my face cut apart. So sorry to the fridge. I hope that that doesn't jeopardize my standing

as the Fangrash prospect writer. But, uh, but yeah, the, the, the Walker Bueller thing, I don't know, like I'm trying to think the craziest way, like I've opened bottles with stuff that's not meant to open a bottle. Like the back of a lighter is maybe the thing that, that is like the craziest thing I'll routinely open a bottle with but uh you know kitchen counters that didn't belong to me in places i was renting uh have been used to open beer bottles um but that's just because like it's hard to go to into the drawer which is several feet away to find the bottle opener sure yeah so i think it's fine i think it's fine i'm surprised that that scherzer didn't grab a bottle and like immediately try to do like three or four of them, assuming that he saw Buehler try to do it. I'm amazed that he didn't just rip them

apart with his bare hands because Scherzer, even in the come down from a pitching performance, seems like he would be a pretty intense guy. So, you know. Maybe he grinds his teeth too. I would not be surprised. Anyhow, welcome to our baseball podcast, where we talk about teeth and dental procedures. We, as I said, the podcast will contemplate the NL field in greater depth in the coming days. So for all of you fans of the Dodgers and the Giants and the Braves and the Brewers, fret not. You will get plenty of analysis relevant to your interests.

But for now, let us briefly, not so briefly dwell on the American League field since the division series on that side of things kicks off today. And maybe the way that we want to start here is to talk about your impressions from the AL wildcard game because obviously the field was not fully set for the division series until the tilt between Boston and New York was finalized. And, you know, let's briefly start with New York. I think there will be plenty of time for gnashing of teeth, if you will, about the future of the Yankees in the coming months. But just briefly, was there anything about the performance that you saw out of the Yankees that I guess particularly surprised you? Because

I think that they were pretty heavily favored going into this game, both from the broader media perspective and also at the site. I know that I picked them to advance and they clearly did not. So was there anything about New York's performance that struck you as particularly surprising? I guess in a one game playoff against an interdivisional foe that, you know, anything can happen. These teams have seen each other a lot during the course of the season. And, you know, if we, it's sort of an appeal to authority, but if we assume like the three times through the order penalty is real, then like maybe we shouldn't have been so snarky about this hitter is X for Y during his career against this pitcher. Like, oh, well, if only seeing a guy twice is meaningful, then maybe

the fact that you've had 42 at-bats against a guy actually is too. But you know, like Garrett Cole being homer prone for the last four-ish years, basically since he left Pittsburgh and became a modern power pitcher, it is pretty interesting. It's interesting, especially in Yankee Stadium because it's so punishing there. He just doesn't have the margin for error to miss with his fastball in the meat of the zone. And we saw more of that in this game. Jonathan Loizaga, who had a long and injury-addled career as a prospect, it was so bad at one point that the Giants just released him. You know, a guy with that level of stuff being released just because his injuries were so bad.

Like, it's kind of shocking. Yeah. You know, he had a fantastic sort of breakout season. And for a lot of the year was the rock of that Yankees bullpen. For him to walk three guys in his inning of work was kind of a bummer considering what he'd been through. And like, you know, this was sort of a momentary regression into the player that when he was frustrating as a prospect like this is what it looked like and so we got some of that and really

just watching the game like Joey Gallo laying into a few balls that just didn't quite get out like there were some things the Yankees not scoring with runners on base and just sort of leaving like those were the key moments that you know as you're watching the game you're like it feels bad the Yankees are not going to win this game yeah where Kyle Schwarber is getting on top of a 97 mile an hour fastball that's like eight inches above the top of the strike zone and Joey Gallo is like what looks like off the bat to me like there were a couple of Joey Gallo fly balls where I was like oh that's gone right they just didn't fully get into them and like that's just the difference ultimately between uh winning and losing in a one game playoff yeah and it's like you have the

sympathy or i don't know if sympathy is quite the right way but of characterizing this but when you're thinking about how this game might have gone differently it's's like, you know, for it to take Stanton's third very hard hit ball to actually exit the park when the first two looked like they should have gone through the green monster, nevermind ricocheting off of it. You know, there were plenty of moments where you thought, oh, that might have gone pretty differently if, you know, this ball is angled ever so slightly differently off the bat, I will admit to some surprise, I read your preview of this game with interest, and I have watched Red Sox baseball this year,

but as Craig Goldstein and I talked about when we previewed this series, had been sort of meh on the Red Sox. This is a very precise analytical assessment of the Red Sox, pretty meh on them. And even knowing how well Nathan Eovaldi had pitched, his performance was just pretty sparkling. Like it was a pretty incredible performance from him.

So I found myself pleasantly surprised that it looked the way that the numbers suggested it ought to. They obviously will not be able to deploy him for game one of their upcoming series. But when you're thinking of this Red Sox team, which sort of backed into the playoffs after being good early and then sort of shakier at times down the stretch, what is your impression of Boston right now? What are your expectations of them going into the division series? I think this bullpen is not the one where I'm just stacking all the playoff bullpens. And I do think the bullpen is particularly important in the playoffs. Sure. This one is on the lower end for me. Hansel Robles at times has been totally dominant and at

times has struggled. It is kind of funny that several of the key Red Sox pieces are guys who were just sort of let go. Yeah. You know, like Kyle Schwarber, the fact that like that guy was just sort of cut loose by the Cubs because he was coming off a bad year and they didn't want to pay his arm salary is like kind of crazy. And Hansel Robles is like that too, where there were times when he was with the angels, when he was utterly dominant and then others,

including like late in 2020, where it was like, Oh, they they're just gonna move on from this guy aren't they and uh for him to look like he does right now is just sort of fortuitous yeah top to bottom this the red socks bullpen is not like it doesn't stack well with the white socks bullpen in my opinion uh you know the the rays the way they deploy their guys like certainly from a stuff perspective it looks more even on paper uh what they'll be dealing with with the rays, the way they deploy their guys, like certainly from a stuff perspective, it looks more even on paper what they'll be dealing with with the Rays. But the way the Rays pitchers are deployed is pretty precise. So we shall see. Adding Tanner Houck into that mix after he was very good as a starter for most of the year and just up down by virtue of the fact that he was one of the only guys on the 40 man who had options left.

But he's clearly one of their best like six arms uh like i think that maybe is an x factor that i'm not fully appreciating but if the rays can grind into the bottom of the bullpen garrett richards struggled towards the very end of the season uh austin davis you know and martin perez were they're not like traditional boy we're happy to rely on these guys playoff arms in my opinion so ryan brazier's thrown a lot towards the end of the year and that might impact the crispness of his stuff so that's the what i'm focusing on and then the red sox infield defense you know at some point i do think it is going to come back to bite them that just because of the roster rules, Jose Iglesias is not able to be on this roster.

You're replacing him with Danny Santana, who's a fine, versatile switch hitter in his own right, but is not an elite defensive player, like one of the maybe the best defensive players of this century, like Jose Iglesias is. Just because I'm biased because I love Jose Iglesias. He's just been so much fun to watch for the last 15 years, basically, that like I think a guy like that should have some sort of playoff exemption. I don't know if like years of service matters. You know, maybe you can come up with something where like, look, you know, this guy's been

in pro baseball. I don't know. But like he deserves some sort of veterans exception, in my opinion. But yeah, those are those are the keys, I think. And then J.D. Martinez's ankle being better, maybe. It certainly isn't as important if he's just going to be DH-ing every day. And I'm sure it'll be better by the time the World Series rolls around if, in fact, the Red Sox make it there.

And he's got to play some outfield against an NL team. But yeah, that is sort of like... Scouts and I had a good laugh over that, that injury just, you know, and then you're rolling through the, Hey, remember who was the guy who got hurt brushing his teeth or whatever, you know, like coughing or something like that. And then there was a brewer scout sitting next to me at the game. And then we were talking about Devin Williams. So, so yeah, I'm, that's what I'm looking at. Red Sox infield defense, biting them in the butt and the, the bullpen not being quite as dominant as

some of the other ones in the playoffs would seem to be. I think those are the two keys and why I have tended to round down on this Bo Sox team for most of the season. I want to stick on the bullpen for a second because the Garrett Richards of it all is such a, he's so fascinating, right? Because this was a guy who was very transparent about the effect that sticky stuff enforcement had on his game. He had to stop using sticky stuff after the June 3rd memo that said that they were going to start to suspend guys. His spin declined precipitously and he was just no longer effective. The spin was gone. Stuff wasn't moving the way that it had been. He was very clear about the effect that that had on him. They move him to the bullpen and it took a minute for things to adjust, but he's been very good since that move and has sort of rebounded

in the bullpen in a way that I think is pretty surprising given just how much of an adjustment he seemed likely to have to make around the sticky stuff. What do you make of Garrett Richards? I find this fascinating. Yeah, you know, it's been interesting to, it takes a lot of man hours to dig in on every individual pitcher and the trends that their stuff have shown since June 21st, basically, or the handful of appearances for the relievers, like leading up to that as players were getting ready to deal with life after sticky stuff.

And so, yeah, like the way I go and do it is I'll go to the player's page on the site, I'll hover over game log. And then once you have hovered over game log on the right, there's pitch info. And like for Garrett Richards, just because of the way his stuff plays, I'm looking at like the game over game vertical movement on his stuff. And you do see like early this season, the vertical movement he's imparting on his fastball is like between like four and a half and five inches. And then all of a sudden it tanks and he's like living. There's some where he's sitting below like three, 2.8, 3.7, 2.9. Like it is declining. There are some outings where he's not using his curve ball at all.

This is a guy who dealt with a lot of injuries, was basically picked up by, you know, the Padres a couple of years ago on spec, even though they had to wait a year for him to come back, they still signed him just because they're betting on this guy having elite stuff, premium spin that they could sort of toy with. And if it works in a rotation, great. If not, like you have an elite bullpen weapon, you would assume, but yeah, like anytime a player's repertoire is limited. And I think that the hitters anticipation is a big factor of this too, that you're, you're dealing with a totally different guy.

So yeah, I think that you want someone like this in this instance to be inserted in the game in a lower leverage situation. You want him to sort of find it in a low stakes way. And you may not have that opportunity. You may not be afforded that because of what's happening in the game. And so, yeah, I think that we've seen this before where relievers entering the playoffs on shaky ground just sort of get rolled out in the same role that they've had all year because of something interpersonal in the locker room and in the name of stability, and it's hard for a manager to tell someone who early in the season he was leaning on that, like, look, you're going to be de-emphasized in a pretty serious way here during the playoffs. And I think that's going to be part of this too.

But yeah, Richard's last five appearances, he's been scored on in four of those, given up a total of eight earned runs during that stretch. So, you know, relief pitching is very volatile. Sometimes you're white hot for a couple of weeks and then it goes away. It's just the nature of the beast. And I think that Garrett Richards is experiencing a swoon right now. And I would try to avoid him if I were Alex Cora. This is just sort of the type of guy who I'd bring in. If I'm up by six in the seventh inning and the

bottom of the order is coming up, like, all right, let's see if Garrett can find it because now he has the opportunity to try to do so without losing us the game. Right. I guess the other bullpen arm that's interesting to me, and I know that you've given this some contemplation, although I don't know how recent that contemplation has been, is Nick Pavetta, who came over from Philly after that team seemed to be kind of exhausted with him. They weren't able to sort of get things right. And it's interesting because his numbers this year in Boston are significantly better than they had been in his last full season with Philly.

He only pitched 15 and two-thirds innings in 2020, but over 155 innings this year like you know he had an ERA in the mid fours and a FIP in the low fours and that's not like incredible but is meaningfully better than his last full season so I just wonder like what happened what happened with Nick Pavetta yeah you know it's funny like for the purposes of what I'm doing it is interesting to track some of these post prospects and how they do or don't develop at the big league level and then a lot of them as they change organizations you start to see holes in the org that they

departed that you know become like it's not good for the d-backs that robbie ray had the year he had like he was just so frustrating right and now he's a scion contender like i do think that says something about shortcomings of the franchise that some of these guys have come out of and so yeah with pivetta specifically you know if you look at the the data he started leaning on the slider more after he left philly and has you know gone from throwing sliders between like 12 and 17 percent of the time and 17% was at the very peak with Philly, to being over 20% pretty comfortably since he's been with Boston. I think that even though he's continued to start there,

this is a guy who, while he was with Philly, you looked at him and was like, this guy just belongs in the bullpen. Why don't they just put this guy in the bullpen? It seems like an instant weapon for a weakness of the club if they can get to a thing like that. But I don't know if there's anything mechanically that's changed. I just think this was a fastball, curveball guy as a prospect. When you look at even some of the release point data, this guy's release point is all over the place. His release point, depending on the pitch type he's throwing,

is also pretty variable and yet like we're still talking about someone who's had a pretty successful run here has a starter for two years with with boston um but yeah it's uh it's one of those things that you'd want to dig in on and see that his release point i think since philly has has changed generally just peeking at the the graphs on the site right now fan graphs uh if you look at like the 2019 release point and and piss and pitch mix not piss mix uh we can't speak you'll see that his release point his release points higher generally now than it was uh while he was with philly which you know if you're just sort of making some inferences as to what that means, it's, he's imparting more vertical shape on his stuff. Like it's going to

mean that his curve ball is more North and South. His fastball is playing more South to North. There's also better demarcation between his change up and his fastball in terms of like the action on it. There's not just a velocity difference. There's also a vertical and horizontal movement gap between the two of them now, which I think is pretty meaningful. So like you just look at someone like this on paper and say, ah, this is what Boston has tweaked since they've acquired him. And maybe you can understand why Philly has decided to move on from some of their player dev folks. Yeah. Well, I think that if we want to assume the same structure of things that Craig and I did, we have covered why you might be nervous if you're the Red Sox going into this series.

Why, if you are Boston, are you feeling confident as you prepare to square up against Tampa? Because I've got arguably the best starting pitcher in the American League, Nathan Evaldi, and my coffer of starting pitchers has much more post-season experience than the Rays group of rookies does. I don't think that experience is valuable, period, but I think it can be. I think that like if I asked you to go to the Instructs game that I'm going to when we're done with this podcast, that like learning where to park and like how to access the field and like getting the gate code to get into the, like all that stuff you have zero experience doing, you might want to bake in an extra half hour into your trip so that you can like get to the field in time. Whereas like I know how to do all that stuff from experience.

I don't have to worry about like buying tickets for my family or anything like that., I know how to do all that stuff from experience. I don't have to worry about like buying tickets for my family or anything like that. Like I know how to handle all that stuff. So I do think that experience can be valuable and it's going to depend on the person. We don't know anything about how Shane McClanahan, Shane Boz and Drew Rasmussen are going to like handle any of this stuff. Right.

I do think you can just be jittery. Like if you perceive the playoffs to be of more importance and it can get to you mentally, of course it can. We just don't know if it's going to or not for any of these specific young individuals who the Rays are going to throw out there. But if I'm Boston, I'm stoked that it's three kids with next to no high-level experience. Shane Boz just came out of, you know, started the year at AA. Right. The most pressure that's been on him as an individual

since, you know, he's been playing baseball at a high level is probably when he was being watched by scouts before the draft. And you're like, all right, kid, here you go. It's area code games. Hunter Green is the opposing pitcher. Go shove. You know, like that's a lot of pressure

on a 17 year old kid. And then since then, he's just been in the minors, you know? So I would think that that's going to make things ascend to a different level. And then like having Kyle Schwarber, maybe on the precipice of another epic heater, like he was on a couple months ago is probably good for Boston. And Raphael Devers being,

you know, maybe not tier one in terms of like big league hitters, but tier two, you know, maybe not tier one in terms of like big league hitters, but tier two, you know, like if we're putting healthy trout up there and like Vlad up there and like, I don't know, maybe that's it. And then Rafael Devers is in the next tier. Like he's incredible. And then Alex Verdugo can just hit anything. Like he's not the, the, he's not fully actualized as a hitter yet because of all the ground balls. Like the game power that you think might be there is, is really not there, but like no matter who the Rays

are, are pitching Alex Verdugo can get the bat head there. And that's not true of everyone top to bottom in their lineup or anyone's lineup. But I, but I think there's a certain level of skill in the playoffs that like bat to ball guys kind of separate themselves from other people in terms of like look i can put this michael kopeck i can put him in play and uh hunter renfro maybe you don't have a chance to do that you know like so verdugo is in that group where it doesn't matter who's on the mound this guy's got a chance to put the ball and play hard somewhere uh and reach base and so like those those that's why i'm into it uh If I'm Boston, I feel like I've got a shot because I can just sort of slug my way there

and my starting rotation gives me a chance against anybody else in my league. Well, maybe now we can talk about the Rays. And I'm going to perhaps take the flip side of the experience question because I found, I don't disagree that like the jitter thing matters. I do suspect that you get over that

like reasonably quickly. Dan matters i do suspect that you get over that like reasonably quickly dan wrote our preview for that series and had done some work on sort of how much from his perspective this stuff has historically mattered and he didn't find a a tremendous amount of of difference in players with limited prior experience particularly post-season experience in terms of how well they performed relative to sort of what their baseline expectation would be just based on sort of regular season record and home field advantage and that sort of thing from a from a team level perspective and the part of that argument that i found compelling was that like these guys are less well known as

entities and that can put downside risk on them, but also gives you the potential for like unrealized upside that you don't necessarily have in someone, you know, like if Aldi spent majors for a decade, but setting that aside, like, let's talk about Tampa for a moment. What about Tampa? If your Tampa makes you feel like we got this, we're on our way to another championship series. Probably that like top to bottom, their org prioritizes guys like Alex Verdugo, where, right. You know,

Joey Wendell doesn't have Nolan Arenado upside, right? Like, but he put, can put the bat head on the ball that just like top to bottom, Wander Franco on down. This group is tough to beat with big velocity. Like they're just not gonna fold against upper level pitching.

So, you know, they play matchups as well as anybody else in baseball as well. So you've got, you know, Manny Margot can come in and be like an elite defensive outfielder at any of the three positions and also crushes lefties. And it seems like the Rays use him like against righties who work in a certain part of the zone where his swing plays particularly well like if you know opposing righties have a sinker that lands to the arm side third of the plate a lot like Manny Margot's swing just sweeps through that part of the zone very naturally like with pull power and and so I think that the Rays are fantastic at playing not just left right match, but like sinker ballers versus guys who swing play in that area.

I think Kevin Cash is pretty good at deploying those types of guys. Yeah. So yeah, the defense overall for the Rays I think is also, especially in the outfield, exceptional. Yeah. Austin Meadows came up as a center fielder. So did Randy Rosarena, but then he put on all that muscle. So he's more of a below-average defensive outfielder now, in my opinion,

which happened pretty quickly. But yeah, the fact that they can just have an elite defensive outfielder at any time is pretty good too. The Rays were really built as an org for the regular season, and specifically a regular season that was coming off of no 2020 season, where they had all this pitching depth it helped them deal with injuries to tyler glass now and nick anderson and you know chris archer although chris archer was one of the those guys you bring in to help you deal with these injuries

uh but i think they had like they have more than a dozen arms on the dl as we're hitting the uh postseason here but just because of the way they went out and like, you know, they signed David Robertson and Matt Whistler and JT Chargois and they traded for JP FireEisen and Drew Rasmussen paid a premium for those two guys. Luis Patino is in that bullpen and can come in and give you multiple innings. I think that they're going to have to play matchups with the bullpen in terms of like stuff and fit versus some of the Red Sox hitters. They don't have the, hey, here comes Pete Fairbanks and Nick Anderson. And like, it's just this parade of dudes like Diego Castillo.

Right. Where in the past couple postseasons, here's just someone throwing 96 plus with huge movement and a good breaking ball in the seventh, eighth and ninth innings. It's not what they have in the bullpen this year. Yeah. It is stocked down for the Rays bullpen in general.

So it's going to, you know, you have to rely on playing matchups in, in the bullpen if you're the Rays and hopefully out slugging your opponents with Nelly Cruz and Wanda Franco and Randy Rosarena. So you got to hope that the, the rookie arms really come to play. I have my doubts about all three guys personally, but I did pick the Rays to win the series.

So I guess we'll see how that plays out, but they're a good deep team. It's an interesting version of Tampa, right? Because I think that the popular conception of them is as this team that, you know, plucks random dudes from other orgs or develops them themselves. And then you have this somewhat anonymous, but across the board, sort of effective running line of pitchers who come in and are really great. And when you think about the fact that they didn't just didn't have a traditional rotation this year, really to speak of, I don't think they had a single qualified

starter from an ERA title perspective. You assume that the pitching is going to be the strength, and I do think that the bullpen has been able to obviously cover those innings and do so well, but this is just like a hitting team now. This is just like a hitting team. They were fourth in non-pitcher offensive war for us. I think they were in the top seven for WRC Plus and did better than that from an AL perspective. It is a very potent lineup in a way that I am having to adjust my own sense of where the strengths and weaknesses are just based on, like you said, what we have seen from them in the past relative to what they are actually

going to be fielding in this playoff field, which is like a bunch of very good hitters and a bunch of pitchers who are talented, but who have more in the way of question marks than I think we're used to seeing from Tampa. And it was different. Like I remember being around, there are a lot of Rays scouts who live here in Arizona. I think there are like four of them who might just show up at the field and see. And so you get to know these guys and you get to see them at the at the field and uh none of them have been around for the last couple of weeks for instructs really because they're all on advanced scout work right uh preparing for the postseason and I remember talking with one of them early during the season who was like look like we're just not hitting

right now and this was when before Franco was was up before they traded for nelly cruz right like austin meadows i think began the year pretty hot and that was sort of it willie adamas was terrible especially at home brandon lau hadn't really turned things around at that point yet uh and so now it is funny sitting here that towards the end of the season it seems to be if we're lining up the strengths it's okay you got a 20 year old superstar in the middle of your lineup you've got a 40 year old potential hall of famer who didn't who didn't come of age until he was almost 30 yeah it's funny you know this baseball is the only sport on the planet that could give you anything remotely like this where nelson cruz looked like a quad a guy through his mid-20s and now has sustained like a David Ortiz style career basically that

where he blossomed late and now has had like a really long decade plus of middle of the order dominance the fact that he and Wanda Franco are hitting back-to-back in this lineup is a thing unique to baseball there's not something like that happening on the offensive line right the Rams where you know some guy who was doing whatever until he was 28 just decided, oh, I'm going to play left guard now. And now he's, you know, it's just a thing unique to baseball. Right. And you have, you know, you have like Mike Zanino, who's, you know, hovered around the Mendoza line for long stretches of this year, but has 33 home runs and gets on base at a good clip and has a 134 wrc plus despite the

fact that he's striking out 35 of the time you know so it's it is a an interesting sort of amalgamation of of guys and i i don't mean to say that boston can't hang from an analytics perspective but you do you know i think it's tempting in moments like this to be enamored with how the rays can play matchups like you said that it is going far beyond just handedness, that there is a good deal of sort of robust analysis that is going. Yeah, it's like when you think about this playoff field, there's Tampa, there's Los Angeles, there's San Francisco, there's Houston, there's Milwaukee. This is just a field that is rife with these orgs that are sort of doing stuff beyond just, oh yeah, like this guy hits lefties well.

It'll be interesting to see all of those orgs sort of mashing up against one another from an analytics bowl perspective. We're going to have a derby. And you want to see, it'll be interesting to see how the lineup construction plays into late game decision making. the lineup construction plays into late game decision making like if you can set it up if you're the raise so that haha you've brought in you know a lefty reliever and here comes jordan luplo and manny margot like and just this you're going to be punished basically for bringing austin davis in or for bringing josh taylor in like now you're gonna deal with this and then also like alex core having to to know all right if i make a move early then the repercussions i have later in the game are that i don't have any roster flexibility left and the rays do and so now i'm gonna like run into this buzzsaw like some of that stuff is i think will go on especially later in

the series when what bullpen arms uh have thrown factors into who is available on a given night uh i think that like lineup construction will be really meaningful for like getting guys yeah later in the game so let's turn our attention to the other bit of that uh american league bracket where we have the white socks uh facing off against the astros for their own five game set uh and we'll just we'll keep the the same uh sort of construction here uh let's start with houston which is the the higher seed here relative to the white socks what if you are houston is is filling you with confidence what are you excited about going into this? Just the offensive excellence of the top of my lineup.

The first seven guys in the lineup are really fantastic. From Al Tuve, Brantley, Bregman, Jordan Alvarez, Uli Gurriel, Carlos Correa, Kyle Tucker. That's a hell of a lineup. I think I'm feeling great about that. Also, the way Lance McCullers and fromber valdez have looked in during like the postseason last year was like fantastic uh i think in terms of rotation depth mccullers valdez luis garcia and urquidy are as deep a group as there is left in

the playoffs period and those two things are two things are big feathers in your cap. I see that they've rostered three catchers for the division series here. So they'll have Martin Maldonado and Jason Castro and also little Garrett Stubbs. So you'll be able to go left, right in certain situations without the fear of having to rely on an emergency catcher.

Jose Siri on the Astros bench will be a lot of fun too. Jose Siri was at one point a top 100 prospect for us at FanGraphs, ultimately his approach. And also he's kind of a lunatic, but there were reasons that he sort of fell off the prospect radar. But he is tooled out. He's got real power and speed. And in instances where you want that in the game

he's going to be able to provide that off of your bench and they've got chas mccormick on the bench too another you know righty hitting corner outfielder who just demolishes lefties he has limited utility but he's so good at the thing that he's good at that like you do want him in like taking a plate appearance off of a lefty in a big spot. He can just change the game with one swing. And it's funny. A bunch of these guys were in the Dominican Winter League last year. McCormick and Siri were just there. Frambois Valdez, I think, in the past has been down there.

So it'll be interesting to see how that goes. But yeah, the Astros lineup is stacked, and they've got real pieces on the bench and they don't have like the high end, Scherzer-y, like here we go, this guy is going to shove for eight innings today type of guy. I don't think in the rotation,

but they've got four legit dudes who can keep you in any game, keep you within striking distance for that offense. So I think they're in a pretty good spot. It's just that the White Sox bullpen is so good yeah and the white socks they're all everyone's good right it's a playoff right but yeah we don't we don't have many like soft teams in in this field the kind of good that some of the white socks hitters are again like i mentioned with verdugo before like and wendell it doesn't really matter how hard you throw these guys are geared to put the bat on the ball right tim anderson and luis

roberts and jose abreu are are that they're those type of guys too and eloy jimenez is as well yeah like yoan moncada this is like one of those things over the last half decade or so where i feel like i've improved as an evaluator. Yohan Mankata is awesome. The fact that this is a switch hitting infielder with this kind of power and plate discipline is surely he's a great player, but his feel for the barrel is not so exceptional that he can't, if you execute your pitches against Yohan Mankata, you will beat him. Yeah. There are places in the, in the hitting zone where he just cannot get to the baseball anderson and lubav and jose abreu that's not true for any of them right like they will just find a way to beat you no matter whether or not you're executing your pitches or uh or not you can they'll get themselves out like lubav will chase right right all three of those guys

have below average plate discipline but like if you miss in the zone, they will punish you. If you execute your pitch in the zone, there's a chance that they will still punish you. And having those three guys at the top of your lineup, I think, is a big, big deal against playoff quality pitching. Because it just doesn't matter whether or not you execute against them. They can still get you. against them they can still get you uh and then that the white socks bullpen to be able to go from like kopeck to kimbrel right to hendrix oh you need a lefty all right well here's garrett crochet whose fastball velocity is down like four miles an hour compared to last year and he's still sitting 97 right uh like that's pretty nuts yeah this is one of the better back ends of a bullpen that I've ever seen,

just in terms of stuff. And then you've got your ground ball guy. I thought it was a stroke of genius. It probably sucks to take Garrett Cole out of a game after he's thrown two innings. But Aaron Boone bringing in Clay Holmes to get a key ground ball. Yeah, with that sinker that he has. Right.

And so Aaron Bummer is just the White Sox version of that. Right that he has yeah right and so aaron bummer is just the white socks version of that right and i i do think that's a big deal like situationally you want a guy who's gonna be able to roll one and get you out of this inning uh pretty quickly like there are going to be spots where you're relying on tonio larusa to manage the bullpen correctly but it's sort of foolproof right because everyone in the bullpen is a stud. And that's what I think. I picked the White Sox to go to the World Series, and the strength of the bullpen is the biggest reason why.

We were very high on the White Sox as a staff. When we did our staff playoff predictions, we were quite high on them. I think that I was a bit surprised, not because they aren't a good team, but just because there are so many good teams in this field and because I I think the, the rays are just attempting pick in any moment like this, as is Houston. And I don't say that to knock Boston. I think we just in general had a New York advancing over them, but I was, I was quite surprised by how well-regarded they are. But I think that when you break it down the way that you did, it makes a good deal of sense. I want to talk about Lubav a bit more. But before we do that, I want to talk about Kyle Tucker, because this is an odd question

to put to you, because I think that I don't want to make it sound like you underrated Kyle Tucker as a prospect, because when he graduated, he was, I think, ranked 10th overall for us. He was second on the Astros. He was a 60 future value. I think that when you look at his prospect TLDR, which, you know, when folks go to check out the site is meant to sort of encapsulate the thought around him as a prospect at the time of graduation so that people have

something to reference when they're kind of looking back on how we conceived of guys as they were moving through moving through the ranks. You know, you said that he's that his major league debut did not go well, which is true, but that most scouts still think there's an above average everyday player in there, one with a shot at stardom if it all clicks. So I don't want to say that you underrated him, but I do think that this is the it clicking version for Kyle Tucker in all likelihood because he hit, you know, he slashed 294, 359, 557. So nice to be able to do fall season stats now.

It's really great. He had a 147 WRC plus, he hit 30 home runs. Like this is him sort of evolving into what I imagine folks that was the best possible version of him and that there might still be some upside here. Yeah, I don't know if there's any more upside, but this is the high endend outcome for Kyle Tucker.

And to slap a 60 future value on someone basically means that during their six or seven years of pre-free agency play, that I expect him to average three annual war, which is like an all-star level production. which is like an all-star level production. He put up five war this year, one and a half last year in the shortened season, which prorates to a little over three and a half, which is still in that 60 future value bucket. And then in 2019, he was hurt most of the time. And during that season, he only played 22 games,

but he was good for those. So he's basically tracking as a 60. If he puts up another, whatever is three five win years then he'll have outpaced that by a little bit he still is just barely over one year of service because of all the time that he spent injured basically yeah well i guess it'll be two years now with this year uh in tow because last year was most of that full year so yeah like he's awesome it was funny when he was an amateur prospect at plant high school in florida he you know he's he's not traditional looking like he kind of he looks like ichabod crane does look like ichabod crane he's like the animated legends of sleepy

hollow his swing some scouts were like this guy's swing is like it looks like ted williams's swing and other people were like no his swing is is like it looks like ted williams's swing and other people were like no his swing is weird what are you talking about and ultimately like he did nothing but hit his entire life the astros who are at that time especially under jeff lew now we're like a pretty shrewd conservative like drafting organization this is the pick that they got or maybe i forget if it was the bregman pick or this pick that they got for not signing brady aiken when they think it was medical all right so like they got tucker and bregman in the same draft like they nailed that and so yeah like

he's just wire to wire there were times when like kyle tucker was in the fall league here and he sucked and he didn't seem like he gave a and scouts here were just like what's with this guy like he's playing against some of the best prospects in baseball and he's just sort of like putting forth no effort I don't know if that's just like Kyle Tucker's nature if he's a low energy dude or whatever like yeah fine he rakes so he's yeah he's an excellent player I'll still take the the 60 I'll bank it at this point still like i just think this is will end up being correct i'm sure that the statistical models like i think three year zips at this point has him being worth just south of four war each of the next three years and if he

does that then he'll have you know been on like the 60 65 borderline basically like it takes to be a 70 you got to do five annual war like that's where the standard deviation all like that's where the the gap is so he's tracking is somewhere between a 60 and a 70 right now which you know i don't throw 65s around a lot because i just try to like pick a bucket to stick guys in and right but that's where this guy's existing right now, which would put him among, you know, like the top prospect on a list,

any given year, like on a top 100 is a 70, basically like Acuna and Tatis and Otani, like we're seventies. And, you know, for, to be a 65 right below that tier is like,

that's pretty special. And that's what he's basically starting to track as now. And then the other guy you mentioned was uh luis robert i still think i still think there's gonna be some comeuppance for luis robert uh he's a godlike talent like no doubt he's also one of the more aggressive hitters in all of baseball and those guys tend to have a regression at some point like they tend to get solved and because with lubav we have a shortened 2020 season and a bunch of injuries like that's been his whole career basically even dating back to his time as minor leaguer like he's just been either hurt or excellent and i think that some of the time that big league arms haven't had to adjust to him is going to end up being meaningful.

If I'm sorting through the Fangraphs leaderboard and looking at the guys who have like a high O swing percentage, which is they swing a lot of the time when the pitch is out of the zone, I have to adjust my thing for non-pitchers and my plate appearances because, again, this guy's been hurt so much. Juan Soto, no surprise there, is the hitter who swings the least when the pitch is out of the zone at just a minuscule 15%,

which is freaking incredible. And then if I look at the very top of the continuum, again, you're not going to be surprised at any of the guys who are here. Jose Iglesias, Jose Siri, Williams Astudillo, no surprise. Hanser Alberto, Albert Almora. Salvador Perez is all the way up there and has had a hell of a career despite being a very aggressive hitter. And then here, you know, among the top 20 of them with a minimum of 20 plate appearances among non-pitchers. Here's Luis Robert at his O swing percentage. Okay. So when he's got a pitch that's coming in, it's not in the zone, he swings 45% of the time. That's a lot. Yeah. So I do think that, you know, Miguel Andujar is

another great example of, he came up, he was unbelievable for a short time, and then the big league pitchers made an adjustment to him, and he hasn't been able to even crack regular playing time since then. And now he doesn't do the other stuff that Sal Perez and Lubav do, which is play an up-the-middle position at an elite level. Andujar is relatively positionless. So guys like Lubop are always going to have utility. But I do think there's going to be some sort of statistical regression because you can't just live in this area with like Brinson and Alfaro. And Francisco Mejia is another great example of this.

We're like, yeah, this guy is unbelievably talented, but he's also kind of scary. His approach is terrifying. And I do think at some point, big league pitchers are going to start to solve it in a way that makes a meaningful difference on his level of performance. I just keep thinking about how, you know, who else was a, you know, who was a high energy guy was Ichabod Crane. And you know what happened to him? He got his head cut off. Did though or did he just you know to camp to a wealthy widow's home and live out the rest of his life in luxury i feel like the cartoon version of

ichabod crane i guess it does try to stay true to his physical description in the source material but he strikes me like he's a ladies man like oh yeah he tries but he doesn't look that way i guess you guys like tall dudes though like being tall is more important than you would like it's a it's significant variable it would seem yeah this is a thing that i have made note of several times that i just i do think it is useful for us when we are evaluating uh men and whether we find them handsome which is a wildly subjective thing and people like all sorts of different stuff. So there's certainly no one answer to this, but I do think it's just useful for you if you are a person who is attracted to men to ask,

is he handsome or is he just tall? Because sometimes they're just tall. Well, then they're looking down at you from the Instagram selfie angle. You just know that the tall guy is seeing you from your best angle all the time. And I think that's the... Maybe that's part of it. I don't know. I think it's a big part of it. Social media warped our brains. Not my brain.

You have stayed pure. I don't mean to give Luis Robert short shrift. I just had to contemplate Ichabod Crandall a little bit more. Yeah, it will be interesting to see sort of this is probably not to say that things have been easy for him prior to now. But, you know, with with guys like this, you do have sort of two modes, right? They have, as you noted, either been been hurt or been excellent. Seeing them with an extended look at at playoff caliber pitching is always an interesting test. I guess if I were a White Sox fan, I would be encouraged by sort of how his strikeout rate

has trended over the course of this season. He's really turned it on since coming back from the injury, but I just can't wait to see all the good hitters against all the good pitchers. Benetti, if you're listening, Luis Robert hits a ball off the wall, a wall ball for Lubav, Lubav Bamboo. A wall ball for Lubav, Lubav Bamboo. A wall ball for Lubob, Lubob Bamboo.

We're going to have to send that out. You can have that for free, Banetti. Yeah, we're going to have to send that along to friend of the pod. You can do the woo. You can do the little Richard woo. Yeah. Which I won't do. Yeah, that's probably.

I want to do it. But you won't do it. I'm not going to do it. So I know that you have made predictions on both of these series as a part of the staff predictions. Did you have New York beating Boston? Yeah, I'm 0 for 2 on the wildcard games. Okay, so then making you re-predict is somewhat fair because one of these series you couldn't have predicted. Who do you have in Tampa versus Boston?

I'm going to stick to my guns and I pick the Rays. Okay. And I picked the Rays because I want them to win. Sorry, Sox guys. But I just want, you know, the Rays, I just like when the teams that haven't won win. So I'm going to continue to pick them and root for them. I do, as I'm sitting here looking at, you know,

the fact that the Rays bullpen does not have the King Ghidorah of weapons back there anymore. It is kind of precarious looking at it. But also, Matt Barnes was utterly dominant for most of the year and isn't on the roster here either. So it's not like Boston is operating at full capacity. It's just their starters. Like, look, staring down Rodriguez and Sale and Evaldi. Yeah, that's a tough assignment. When the Rays are made of five and dive guys.

Yeah. You know, like it's like, eh, all right. So I am kind of worried about it, but I'm still picking the Rays. And then in the other one, I'll stick to my guns with the White Sox too. Like I just think that bullpen is absolutely ridiculous. That's Mechagidra where, you know, Aaron Bummer is the red thing in its chest that shoots the lasers or whatever. Oh, okay.

And so I'll take the White Sox all the way. It's just about, you know, is Corbin Burns Godzilla and going to defeat, you know, Mechagidra, which is what happens in the Godzilla movie with Mechagidra. How does, but like Mechagodzilla ends up losing, right? Right. Well, like, so Mechagidra, King Ghidorah dies and one of his heads is severed somehow. And then the alien people, I forget, there are a lot of alien subplots in Godzilla, take

the head of the defeated Mechagodzilla and attach it to the decapitated middle head of King Ghidorah. And that's what creates Mechagidra. Right, right. Which I comp to the White Sox bullpen. That's fair. Yeah. That comp was on the tip of my tongue too, but I'm glad you beat me too.

Dateless through high school, I tell myself it's because I'm 5'11". Yeah, right. This is just, it's just about the, it's just about not being tall. It's just what it's about. That's not not tall. On the apps, it's the first question that, you know about not being tall. It's just what it's about. That's not not tall. On the apps. It's the first question that, you know, most women ask is, are you over six foot?

Right. Right. Shallow. We really need to do. Yeah, sure. We really need to do another run of the, we're all going dateless t-shirts. Yeah. I think we need to do another run of those. We're going to talk about Fall League in just a second for a little bit here.

do another run of those we're going to talk about fall league in just a second for a little bit here we're clearly not previewing the nlds series because um we need to let poor dylan take a break from editing at some point but because those will probably be previewed with another guest co-host do you have any quick thoughts on them that you would like to share here for posterity on the analog teams i don't know i just think the brewers their rotation can throw down with anybody willie adamas brings a competitive intensity that that team did not have and eduardo escobar too like i really think that i said on the radio i did cincinnati radio with our with our friend danny sammet uh like before the trade deadline and i was like yeah you know I think the Reds are the team that are going to push chips in

and like make meaningful moves at the deadline. Ah, this team did it. They got Eduardo Escobar and Willie Adamas in a relatively narrow stretch. The stuff I said about like guys being talented enough to hit whoever, whatever stuff is thrown their way. Avi Sayel Garcia is absolutely in that bucket. Another guy whose plate disappointment is questionable,

and he succeeded anyway. I like the weapons that the Brewers have on the bench there with Vogie and Jace Peterson and Jackie Bradley Jr. and Tyrone Taylor is a hell of a player too, I think. They just can play certain cards late in games that I think are going to be really meaningful, and I have the Brewers going all the way. I picked them to win the World Series.

All right. Well, we will, I'm sure at some point ask you back while those series are in progress to talk more about them, but those are, those are the predictions for now. So let's talk about fall league. I am so happy that fall league is back. I think that fall league is one of the things that I missed the most about, about pandemic ball. And you know, there were lots of good reasons for, for all of the scheduling decisions that were made there. So I don't mean to suggest that there should have been a Fall League, but boy, did I miss Fall League, Eric.

I sure missed Fall League. Fall League is great. We will have Fall League back opening night. Opening day is next Wednesday for Fall League. We got rosters this week. So yay, we have we have fall league back and i would just say for the folks listening like if you're if you're keen to see baseball in person and you feel comfortable and safe traveling for fall league it is it is a good time it is a more low

key sort of adventure than spring training so if you live in a cold place and you want to be warmer and also see some fall ball, I can't really recommend fall league highly enough. But it is also a very valuable evaluation period for you as a prospect person. So what do you got for us in terms of the guys you're most either excited to see or think that this fall league evaluation is particularly important for. Right. And if people listening to this have no, I guess I really don't know the level of intensity with which people who listen to this podcast care about prospects and stuff. So the fall league is a six team league that happens in Arizona at a handful

of the spring training stadiums over the course of six weeks in the fall. Each team will send a handful of players. And so what you end up with like is the Glendale Desert Dogs have White Sox and Dodgers prospects because the White Sox and Dodgers train at that stadium during the spring and all year round. It's their minor league complexes there too. And then a bunch of other teams will also send players to be on that team too so the glendale team this year is like dodgers angels white socks astros cardinals and you end up with like prospect all-star teams basically it's players that the teams want to get further development because they were hurt during the course of the regular season or their important roster evaluations whether or not they're added to the 40 man or exposed to the rule five teams want to see them there in the past some random corner cases have

occurred where like kyle schwarber was hurt all year and even though he had been a big leaguer for a little while he was granted an exemption and allowed to like tune up in fall league for the cubs world series run because it's not like there's minor league baseball going on elsewhere for him to rehab at like they allowed him to do that and so like jordan hicks of the cardinals you know is coming down here to pick up some meetings this year had they won the wild card game he might have been tuning up for a late postseason appearance so there's some interesting stuff like that that's going on i am just glad to be back doing it as well. I missed it last year. It does provide like, look, you're at a game. There are maybe a couple hundred people there during the early part of the season and the

end part of the season when there's the most amount of excitement, there will be a couple hundred people at a given game. And then some games, you know, it's, it's a Wednesday in Mesa, a midday start, and there are like 80 people there. And it's just the type of environment that I prefer watching baseball in rather than like, you know, camp day at the Iron Pigs when you just have thousands of children screaming like pass. So this is, you know, my type of thing. And the rosters are always packed full of, if not top 100 prospects, which is, you know, just an arbitrary endpoint. It really doesn't matter. if not top 100 prospects, which is, you know, just an arbitrary endpoint. It really doesn't matter.

And it's probably damaging to the baseball cultural understanding of prospects to have like arbitrary prospect list numbers and stuff. But there are a lot of those guys, names that maybe even casual baseball fans have heard coming up through the ranks. In addition to lots of other interesting, you know, prospect hipster people want to see these guys. And they drive a lot of the report writing that I do for the off-season lists and where guys end up ranking on those lists. So given that background, as you're looking at the rosters, yeah, are there guys who like you

haven't had a chance to see as much of or who you think, you know, getting a fresh evaluation is going to be particularly important for you as we're going into this season? Yeah, the guys always kind of bucket into a few groups. You have your high profile dudes who I absolutely need to see because they're players of interest toward even the most casual of prospect followers.

So that's like Yoelke Cespedes with the White Sox. He's Yoelke' half-brother. You know, the White Sox tend to funnel a lot of their international dollars to Cubans because they act late in the market's timeline. I don't think particularly highly of Yoelki. He's, again, like a guy I have a binary hit tool no on, basically. Whereas like the other publications have him towards the very, very top of the White Sox system. So he'll be to see him not in a short look environment like I have before, basically,

like during the co-op league that happened between big league spring training and minor league spring training. I saw three games from Yoelke and then saw him again at the Futures game. You know, those are relatively short looks and the context for those looks were like, hey, this guy hasn't played baseball in a while. And then hey here's him taking bp and then facing someone throwing 98 or whatever uh to see him against a more normal group of pitching over a long period of time right is going to be pretty valuable and then you have like nolan gorman he also fits into that like hey a lot of profile around this guy bucket um just looking through the rosters for more of those guys mackenzie gore will be here i've seen five mackenzie gore starts this year so i don't really

care to see any more of him but other people are going to want to cj abrams uh the padres top prospect who's a top five overall prospect in baseball had a severe injury during the year he's back for this now he's getting tuned up during some instructional league games on the backfields right now actually he's in the in the lineup today. Last I saw him, he was just walking around the Padres complex with a pair of $450 Yeezys on, which I made fun of him for. So there's that type of guy. And then you have your sleeper types, like guys whose names I didn't even know until they got put on the roster. And when I'm doing background on the individuals who are put on the roster, it's like, oh, wow, look at this guy's numbers this year.

We're pretty exceptional. And, you know, he's 25, but it's a pitcher, so he could be immediately useful and or important to a big league club. So those guys become a high priority for me, like just as much as some of the high-profile guys. I have a much better idea of what I think about Nolan Gorman right now than I do some 25-year-old pitcher who I've never heard of, but was striking out a batter and a half per inning during the course of the regular season. So guys like that are Keegan Curtis of the Diamondbacks, who they got back from the Yankees

in the Tim Locastro trade. I mean, that's a guy who had pretty good minor league numbers who, until that deal, I hadn't heard about. And then you end up with, you know, Gregory Santos, who was suspended for 80 games for PEDs, was a top 100 guy entering the year. Seeing how he looks coming off of a PED suspension will be pretty important. Like I could literally run down every player on every roster and talk about why they are interesting and important for me to see. But ultimately the goal is just going to be to see as many players as I can. Obviously, we're going to try to structure my looks with like what the coverage of the list rollout looks like. So if the Angels list is the first list that we publish, like I'll want to get in and see Glendale

ASAP because they have the Angels kids. And I'll write those half dozen reports if they need to be written so that the Angels list can be like cemented basically. And then intructs will be done. My following reports on that group will be done. And then that list as a whole can be written without us missing any information. Right. And so that's going to structure it. I will say like I do encourage people to come down.

If you're vaxxed and want to hop on a plane, you know, the plane rides, the plane rides suck anyway. So the fact that you have to have your mask on in the airport and for the duration of the plane ride, it makes it slightly more sucky to be on a plane, but it's not like that experience was fun and it's being wrecked by that. So come on down. Like it's going to be easy to distance at all of the fall league ballparks because no one goes.

Arizona, in terms of COVID right now, we're doing okay compared to everybody else. We're not doing great. But you can probably... The weather's nice enough here that when you got to eat all your meals at a restaurant when you're on the road, you can probably do it all outside. I'd encourage folks to stay. If you have the means to stay in Scotottsdale that's that's where you want to go uh it's your best option for like hanging out and eating good food and also being within

20 minutes of driving to three of the the ballparks for fall league the scottsdale stadium where the scorpions play salt river fields where the rafters play and sloan park and mesa where the uh river the mesa solar socks play that's like the cubs and the a's and stuff um but yeah like are there any as you're looking at the in the why don't you let's play a game where you have the rosters up right now no but i can why don't you pick a random name? Oh, okay. Oh, I like this. Yeah, yeah. Let's see. Pick random and just throw them at me. And see.

And I'll tell you if I either, why they're important to see or stuff about them. Like they're, and we'll see if you can like stump me. Oh, I don't feel confident about my ability to do that, but. The pitching, the pitching in fall league is always worse than the hitting. So like, as I'm shooting and looking at the rosters when I first got them, it was every hitting prospect for the most part I could tell you a lot about.

They're already good enough and know that 90% of them are just on the board already. But because of the nature of Fall League pitching and wanting to keep your actual pitching prospects healthy and maybe experiment with and stress test some of your fringy pitching prospects, the group of pitchers that comes to Fall League is always a little bit worse than the group of hitters. So why don't you, let's go through each roster right now.

Pick a pitcher at random and a hitter at random. Tell me about, I'm picking a name guy. I'm picking a guy because of his name. Tell me about Zach Lingenfelter. Yeah. All right. So. Lingenfelter?

Am I saying that right? Zach Lingenfelter. Lingenfelter. Man, these angels, I got to say, I don't know about them as an org sometimes, but they sure have some good names. to say i don't know about them as an org sometimes but they sure have some good names so yeah zach lingenfelter that's pretty fortuitous because he's like on the fringe of the uh the like angel prospect list right now he throws hard that's sort of it this folly evaluation period will be for like whether he is in the honorable mentions of the angels list or in the 35 plus piece gotcha

which is basically like if you're a 35 plus guy we think that relatively soon you'll be an up-down reliever and the 35 is more like you're an emergency call-up the velo only type guys tend to be in that honorable mention space whereas if you've got a legit out pitch, like a real secondary pitch, even if it's just average plus, you know, your big velocity, you end up in that 35 plus tier. And Lingenfeld are sort of on that fringe right now. He's a big division one guy who the Angels drafted in 2019 out of Tennessee. And because of his frame and arm strength, he's been known about since he was in high school. Basically, this is a guy who I've got history with dating back to his time, like the area code games.

And there's always just sort of been Velo. He's 24 and a half. He might be a low leverage guy in the Angels bullpen next year. Tell me about James Outman from the Los Angeles Dodgers. Outman's interesting. He's a smaller school prospect from, I think it's James Madison is where he comes out of. He's kind of tool prospect from, I think it's James Madison is where he comes out of. He's kind of toolsy, definitely runs better than you think to kind of look at him.

You know, has broad strokes profile utility because it's like, hey, it's a lefty hitting outfielder who can run and he's performed, you know, in the minors pretty consistently. So he's one of those guys who might be a fourth or fifth outfielder for a team. His 40-man timeline is this December. So the Dodgers have to decide whether he gets added to the 40-man or be exposed to the Rule 5 draft. He would strike me as the type of guy

who a team who wants to take a flyer on someone like this might trade for. They might leverage the Dodgers into partying with him for not a lot but pretty well rounded uh outfielder with some swing and miss questions but definitely his power has some speed and because he's a lefty stick might have like you know part-time player utility okay we're going to move on now i'll touch on the big names on the glendale roster before we move on you got zach thompson with with the Cardinals. First rounder out of Kentucky a couple years ago.

Curveball, sinker. A really good looking curveball. Nolan Gorman is on this roster as well. Cody Hosey, who the Dodgers took in the first round a few years ago, out of Tulane. He was a much older draft pick. He did not have a good junior year. I guess it would have been like a draft eligible sophomore

year and then had a monster following season. He's been hurt mostly as a pro. It has been hard to evaluate him. Jacob Amaya with the Dodgers, who's on the top 100 list as just like a solid everyday shortstop, mostly because of his defense. He's on this list, on this roster rather. Pedro Leone, Cuban guy who the Astrosros signed was hurt most of the year but was in the futures game toolsy centerfield and maybe second base and shortstop too he'll be interesting to watch as well okay let's look at the mesa solar sucks i love that you i know for sure as i'm looking at this roster that the guys who are catching your eye are the just the dudes with a weird name i want you to know that that is totally fine.

I want to hear you say some of these names. Yeah, some of these names are great. Come on, you see the one. Oh, I don't know if this is the one that you're thinking of. Who is Cray Finfrock? Is that who you thought? Yeah. I don't know if it's Cray or Cree.

Cray or Cree. His first name is just C-R-E. Finfrock? Finn Frock. Yeah, all I know about Finn Frock is that he throws hard and can spin it. He sits 94 plus with like 2,500 RPMs. He barely pitched this year. He's thrown three innings combined between low A and double A.

And they were wild innings. It's not as though this is this is a relief only guy he was active at the end of may and then was on the il and then came back in late june early july and hit the il again after just a couple of appearances so during that stretch he was throwing very hard like sitting 94 95 with big big spin and that's all i know about him he's 25 okay all right well then i will look to the the hitters and this is a this is a known name uh to folks this is not like uh i'm not uncovering someone people haven't heard of but like what's the latest and greatest on austin beck austin beck was a top 10 pick by the a's out of a north carolina high school a couple years ago yeah off

the top of my head i'm forgetting now if it was like he had football practice during the summer or he had an injury maybe. Maybe the injury was caused by football from the fall before. Maybe I'm thinking of Tyler Stevenson. I forget. But Austin Beck was not on the high school showcase circuit very much during his pre-draft summer and really exploded as a prospect against varsity pitching the following spring, like just at his high school. And so there's a lot of the very forward

thinking teams have lower confidence in players like that because they want to see him perform against the best varsity pitching in the country the summer before at like all the all-star showcases and stuff when the kids don't have school that's when they're doing most of that so for the evaluation period for high school hitters is most important actually the summer before their senior year of high school so Beck had none of that and then went bonkers during his senior spring and in pro ball he's always just kind of like man like the the pro scouts to look at him as a high schooler was like, wow, this guy's got seven power and a seven arm. And like, he's fast enough to play center field. And then you put him on a pro field with other pro athletes. And you're like, Hey, you know what?

This guy's power is actually average. He's more of a hit tool guy than anything else. Yeah. He can play center field, but his approach is also also bad and so it limits how much the tool is going to play in game anyway austin beck was not even on the a's prospect list for me entering the season he was put in the honorable mention section as a guy who like i know people are going to ask about in the comments because he was a top 10 pick a couple years ago so i'm going to put him here but i just haven't been as an org guy it's's not, you know, he's someone who I just don't think is going to hit enough to be a big leaguer at all. So yeah, controversial take. I'm just more apt to do that now.

Like, sorry if, you know, Robert Poisson, you know, you, I almost said blew your whole load internationally on Robert Poisson and then thought better of saying it. So, you know, but you know, you put all your eggs in that basket and it turns out he's not good.

Like, I'm just going to say so now from watching him on the backfields. And, you know, that's just sort of the case with Austin Beck. And like, maybe it's the case with Benny Montgomery and Eric Pena and some of these other high profile guys. Other solar socks to watch. Hey, I see a name of someone who,

I know the org was struggling to get vaxxed because all the players have to get vaxxed to go to fall league. And I know that there's a team who was like, hey, we want to send this guy, but he doesn't want to get vaccinated. And here he is on the roster, which means that he did it. So good for him and good for the team. You know, Caleb Killian with the Cubs, who they got back from the Giants and the Chris Bryant trade. I saw him twice last fall.

I have notes in a notebook on him. I was like, yeah, this guy's OK. Like maybe he's a depth starter. It's like 91-93 with four pitches and they're all pretty average. He was utterly dominant during the season before he was traded as part of the Bryant deal. So I need to revisit what I, what I have there on Caleb Killian. That'll be an interesting evaluation. Logan Davidson, who was a first round pick by the A's out of Clemson a couple of years ago. Another one who's not really panning out. He's on this roster. Gabriel Moreno, Venezuelan catcher of the Blue Jays, who was a first-round pick by the A's out of Clemson a couple years ago, another one who's not really panning out.

He's on this roster. Gabriel Moreno, Venezuelan catcher of the Blue Jays, who's just like a top-30 prospect in all of baseball, probably a super-athletic catching prospect with well-rounded offense. He's here. Yuzniel Diaz, who the Orioles got from the Dodgers as part of the Machado trade, was towards the back of a lot of top-100 lists at that time just sort of fallen off he's on the fall league roster and then a couple big time toolsy college outfielders J.J. Blede who the Marlins took in the top five out of Vanderbilt

a couple years ago he hasn't really performed he's here Cameron Meissner toolsy guy from Missouri also a Marlin took some time to but sort of a corner, it seemed, in the middle of the summer. He's coming. Kyle Stowers from Stanford, who has like one of the sexiest, most athletic left-handed swings you're going to see. It is like the Cody Bellinger swing from Kyle Stowers. Not quite that much bat speed,

but it does have that visual component to it. Orioles outfield prospect, he's coming too, and he'll be on the Mesa roster. Okay, now we have the Peoria Javelinas what name do I what is a what is a Jake Higginbotham uh all right so Jake Higginbotham of the Braves he's another guy where there's like above average velo and spin he's was at high a most of the year he's a 1996 birthday so a 25 year old at high a most of the year. He's a 1996 birthday. So a 25-year-old at high A, even for a pitcher where I care about

like the age of the guy relative to the level less than I do for hitters, like that still is like, oh wow, this guy's like 25 and was an A ball most of the year. Another pitcher from Clemson, the Braves did draft him in the 11th round. And anytime you see a guy taking the 11th round

from a scouting standpoint like you want to pay attention to that guy probably more than whoever was taken in the 9th and 10th round of that draft because of the way the draft works and like bonuses and stuff teams have had like the whole night after day two of the draft to sit and figure out who's going to be at the top of their board for day three they know how much money they have to spend over the allotted slot amount, and they end up taking a gamble on someone that they like typically over slot in the 11th round. And this is a guy like that. He was also hurt most of the year. He threw, I think, like, I don't know, 15 innings or whatever. So it's a relatively fresh eval for someone like Higginbottom for me, who I just know was hurt most of the year and throws hard and can kind of spin it.

For me, who I just know was hurt most of the year and throws hard and can kind of spin it. Okay, who among the hitters? What's the latest on Shea Lengeliers? Yeah, another Braves guy, first rounder out of Baylor, was seen as a glove first prospect coming out of the draft. And that there was like either hit or power, like you could decide what he was going to do offensively by augmenting how aggressive his swing was going to be, but that ultimately he was maybe not likely to be a star, but a fast-moving,

solid, everyday catching prospect coming out of Baylor. He's outperformed my expectations for him as a hitter. The Braves have sort of chosen the let's let this guy hit for power route. And he hit 22 bombs this year at double A while striking out 26% of the time. So, you know, how he handles pitching in the fall league is not necessarily as important as he looked at double A all year. I'd wager a bet that like the high end arms that he saw in double A were roughly comparable to what he'll see in the fall league. Maybe he'll see more high end here than he did at double A, but like the low end of the arms that he'll see in fall league will be worse than the low end of the arms that he saw in double A. I mean, we've just talked about a couple of 25-year-olds

who spent the whole year in A ball. So I don't know that this evaluation period for him will necessarily be very meaningful. We moved him close to 50th overall and 100 in the middle of the year on the strength of what he did. And I think that's kind of where he's going to settle. Other guys to care about on the Solar Sox roster, or excuse me, Peoria roster. Roanti Contreras, who the Pirates got back from the Yankees in the tie-on trade, made his big league debut at the end of the year. He'll be here. He's someone who might move up into the to the 55s or 60s for us

based on the strength of his fall carmen majinski the first rounder out of was he first rounder or sandwich round guy by the pirates anyway south carolina uh first rounder ish in the 2020 draft he's here miguel yajure also came back from the yankees in the taiwan deal those are three arms to watch there jiwan bae uh korean shortstop shortstop, plus-plus runner, feel for contact, maybe a leadoff hitter with a future for the Pirates. Nick Gonzalez, who they took in the top five in the 2020 draft out of New Mexico, second baseman. He's coming.

Bryson Stott, one of the Phillies' top prospects, shortstop prospect from UNLV. He'll be here. So overall, here's a really good one. Simon Muziati was embroiled he's part of like the red sox bonus fixing scandal a couple years ago the red sox signed him they had to cut him loose the phillies signed him it's a leadoff hitter toolkit with the speed and feel for contact he's been hurt a ton he had a very very brief they had to kind of like push him to triple a uh late in the season the phillies did just because that was where the schedule was extended and that was where like baseball was

still going on so they like had to push him there uh even though like from a resume standpoint he does not belong there he's a very very important evaluation for me and the rest of the industry here in the following years because we haven't seen him very much oh man we have several more of these just uh uh so we will we will move now to the salt river rafters i i love how our listeners are going to be like you have division series you could be talking about but this is what we're doing today we're just doing it it's fine nothing's happened yet like i know division series like just let it roll let's see who who amongst the rafters are we super interested in here from a pitching perspective well here's a question because maybe it will make d-backs fans not feel bad what's a mitchell stumpo that's a great name uh yeah that's a good one is it is it stumping you is it stumpoing you i mean not

totally i don't know a ton about mitchell stumple i could tell you he's like mostly a fastball slider guy who has like a 40 like 40 great stuff generally like it just seems like a guy who is being sent for the purposes of depth it's's someone who I've seen and have notes on, basically, that are very rudimentary. Here, Eric, this guy sits 92 to 94, about 2,300, 2,400 RPMs worth of spin on the fastball in a low 80s slider that I've got a three on. So if I'm pointing at other pitchers on this roster

that Meg should have picked. Yeah, can I give you an actual good D-backs guy? What's going on with Slade Ciccone? Because he got dinged up a little bit in the early going, right? Yeah. So Ciccone was there. They had a couple first rounders, Bryce Jarvis from Duke and then Ciccone from Miami was, I think, their sandwich round guy in the 2020 draft.

And then the two of them came to the alt site and Instructs last year, and Ciccone looked better, even though he was picked second of those two guys. You know, when Ciccone's healthy, and he has been dinged a couple times between this season and then during his amateur career at Miami, when he's healthy, it's like mid-90s. It is sort of a violent delivery, but there are two plus

breaking balls in there and uh like the makings of a viable change-up he's mostly going to be fastball curveball and then the slider and the change-up sort of mix in a little less than those two uh when he was healthy this year he was sitting 93 and his curveball's got like plus plus movement it doesn't have gigantic spin it's only like a 22 2300 rpm curveball with the way he snaps it off creates like plus plus looking movement on it it is a nasty pitch where i'll just kind of look at the spin rate and put it aside because the visual visual evaluation of the curveball is very good and then it's just about like finding health and command and uh which of those other two pitches slider, the changeup will come to the forefront

and be his third offering. But he's a top 100 prospect in my opinion. Other guys to care about on the Salt River roster, Abner Uribe with Milwaukee. It wouldn't surprise me if we saw him touch 103 during the fall, just like with the adrenaline and single inning outings, like that guy can really bring it. Joe Lungiao, a Chinese kid who pitches for Milwaukee as well, like really young, 01 birthday. He had a TJ. It's been a while since he's thrown. The last I saw him, he was still 17. He's got elite curveball spin rates, like 3,100 RPMs on this guy. It was Lungiao, and now I think it's Joe Lungiao. I'm not sure how, if that changed or if, but he's going to be an interesting evaluation. I think he's the youngest arm on the entire Salt River roster.

And then this roster has Spencer Torkelson. Michael Toglia was a Futures game guy, switch hitting first baseman from UCLA, who's one of the better prospects in the Rockies system. And then Joey Weimer, who will stand apart from the other kids on this roster because it's like his frame is gigantic. He does not get cheated. This guy's going to take the most epic hacks you see in all the Fall League. He was also one of the hardest throwing pitchers in Division I baseball in 2020 at the University of Cincinnati.

So this is a Ben Lindbergh player who was like a two-way guy in college and now has like a giant power hitting outfielder in the brewer system okay so moving on to the scottsdale scorpions which hey like all you boston fans you get to be excited about stuff again i don't know let's uh let's talk about what's going on with connor siebold connorold, the Red Sox kind of pilfered from a desperate late Klintak era Phillies who just needed bullpen guys. And Seabold would just be one of those types who would be in the back of most rotations at this point. You know, I saw Seabold twice this year.

He's like 91-93 with great command. He's got a plus changeup and his breaking ball has shape and depth and first pitch utility. It's like a nasty little surprise to show first pitch to someone who's like sitting on a fastball and here comes this like slow looping curveball in first strike one.

He's a good back-end starting prospect. He was hurt for a bunch of the year and needs to pick up innings. I expect he'll be in the big leagues at some point next year as like a 4-5 starter. Yeah, because he's already on the 40 man, right?

Yeah. He's a 40 man guy. Okay, and then here's an oldie but a goodie for you. What's going on with Hunter Bishop? Yeah, Hunter Bishop, ASU. He was originally, what school was he supposed to go to?

Maybe he was supposed to go to UW and play like football and baseball and then he recommitted very late in the process to Arizona State. Had a rough go of it early in his career in college. And then during non-conference play in February of his draft year, he went insane and like had one of the hottest months in all of college baseball. And, you know, he changed his swing. It looked more like Christian Yelich's at that time. And, you know, whether you ascribed any sort of realness to his breakout was like,

all right, well, look, his swing is different. Then he started seeing more curveballs during Pac-12 play, and he started to kind of fall off, and he has either been hurt or not really performed during most of the rest of his career. So this will be an interesting test. This is maybe a guy who will be exposed here during this Fall League in a way that makes us all collectively start rounding down on him. Yeah, but definitely him and Jeter Downs on this roster too are the two guys where it's like, oh, he's not really good.

And then, I think I'm not speaking out of turn that you think that this guy is just unequivocally good. You'll also have Marco Luciano from the Giants, right? Yeah. Yeah, the Scottsdale lineup is – the roster is loaded. Like Patrick Bailey of the Giants is catching. First-round pick from NC State in 2020. Switch hitting, like awesome well-rounded player. Marco Luciano has got some of the best bat speed on the planet,

let alone in the prospect universe. Like just on the planet, Marco Luciano's bat speed stands apart from most other people. Curtis Meade, who the rays also stole from the phillies australian kid who they push pretty aggressively this year uh doesn't really have a position because he can't throw to first base from third base accurately but uh and his approach is not good but like puts the bat on the ball and hits the crap out of it he's really interesting curtis mead maybe some late blooming stuff there too because he's an australian kid jose tana with cleveland a big 40 man evaluation there and then heriberto hernandez or as we call them on the backfields before the rangers traded

him to the rays heribert god who just went on like an epic run towards the end of his complex season in 2019 where he was just you could not get him out. He was going to punish you on those AZL Rangers teams from 2019. He's here now, and I super cannot wait to watch Herobroto play. Just one of those guys who absolutely mashes, doesn't really have a position, and I don't care. And then last but not least, we have the Surprise Saguaros. And what's the latest on Jackson Rutledge? Oh, that's a good one. Yeah, Jackson Rutledge went to Arkansas. Things didn't really work out for him there.

There was like, you know, he wasn't throwing strikes. And so he didn't pitch because Arkansas has viable alternatives. And he transferred to a junior college, San Jacinto Junior College in Texas, which is one of the bigger ones. Big, big arm strength, giant guy, you know, sit 95, 97, show you a nine. Slider is hard in the mid-80s movement-wise. It's like about average, but it lives mostly off of its velocity between the injuries and the strike throwing track record and like his size and general athleticism. I've got him in the bullpen, but he could be a real impact bullpen arm in relatively short order for the nationals

and then what about uh what about ezekiel duran yeah ezekiel duran came over from the yankees uh in the joey gallo trade so he's rangers prospect now he's another one where he's very young but because of when latin american players sign he's got to be put on the 40 man here i think he's even on the 40 minute i might already be uh but if not i think that his his no it's this winter that he's got to be put on the 40 man which you know he's a dan ugly clone in a lot of ways like has that kind of body he's not a good second base defender he's going to strike out but boy oh boy for a middle infielder to hit you know maybe 30 plus home runs a year like that's pretty rare and this guy's got a shot to do that so the rangers group on this roster is is very good we will see duran we will see justin foskew their first round pick out of mississippi state from a couple years ago a guy

who was like when he was in college it was hey this guy's performed against the sec he's a hit tool first guy and uh you know play second base and then he showed up to spring training and he's a hit tool first guy and, you know, play second base. And then he showed up to spring training and he's built like a brick house. He has like two grades more worth of power and striking out a bunch and like leaning into power, like totally the opposite type of player that he was in college. So he'll be interesting to watch. Sam Huff, folks should know, he's going to be playing first base, not catching here, which is going to, you know, hurt his value overall, but he's got 80 raw, Sam Huff does. And then Asa Lacy, the Royals lefty, who was the top five pick a couple years

ago, saw him on the backfields earlier this week. He looks kind of rusty. You know, his feel for throwing strikes has sort of regressed, but I did see one inning in his first intrux outing. So like, don't take any of that uh as gospel yeah let's see how these next six weeks play out for asa lacy okay well we will have more to come on prospects generally the fall league in particular and certainly the postseason in the coming weeks before we close just in case anyone says but meg you didn't talk about the nl wildcard game at all and that's disappointing to us because we enjoyed the nl wildcard game i would put to you eric what did you enjoy most about the nl wildcard game did you find the potential of a pool holes walk-off intriguing yeah you know i had to chat

during the nl wildcard game so i feel like you know i lose 30 iq points and watching the game itself it's hard to do two things at once. Which is sort of, yeah, not, I don't know, like, yeah, it was a good game. It had pace. I guess, like, the first thing that comes to mind is like, hey, Adam Wainwright, like, we don't dislike you. He looked very good yesterday. He looked quite good.

I guess I'll say my piece on that now because I'm sure as hell I'm not going to do it on Twitter. Like, hey, like, half of us picked you guys to go to the postseason before the year. And the way our playoff odds get calculated during the year is like, we don't augment them by hand and say like, yeah, the Cardinals, they suck.

Let's like round down on like, we are not doing that. Any, you know, whatever, athletes got to do this thing where they put a chip on their shoulder because playing the game on its own doesn't seem to be enough for them. Maybe that's a thing that, you know, Adam Wainwright's got to do at his age. I think he's an, he, you know, is a great player. He's an awesome analyst. I look forward to what his career brings afterward. I think it's kind

of and dumb that he, you know, approaches thinking about stuff like this, the way he does that he you know approaches thinking about stuff like this the way he does that he you know feels the need to to misapply some sort of malice on our part to what the cardinals playoff odds were and it took a 17 game winning streak and the padres absolutely tanking for you to sneak into the playoffs as the second wild card which is like i said this to me yesterday i'm going to repeat it today like it is what pluto is to planets the second wild card team which is like, I said this to Meg yesterday, I'm going to repeat it today. Like it is what Pluto is to planets. The second wild card team is to playoff teams. So, you know, I don't know how much you proved other than you don't know how our playoff odds work. And the only ounce of disrespect I have for Adam Wainwright has, you know, percolated in the last 72 hours or so. And none of that, none of, none of it before it, like nothing but universal love for Adam Wainwright.

Yeah. The fan graph people. So yeah, I'm going to email this podcast episode with the time signature to a bunch of people in the Cardinals work so they can get this to his ear holes. He's got plenty of time to listen to it now. So, Oh boy.

Yeah, I know I got salty there at the end. Yeah, you kind of did. I'm surprised. I'm surprised that, that you got a little salty. I stick up.

I'm going to stick up i'm gonna stick up for my site like this is where i work right right like this is these are my teammates so i'm gonna stick up for them yeah i think that we like as human beings struggle with probabilistic thinking i do not think that it is a natural mode of uh moving through the world for a lot of us and so and it's not as if people talking about the site is bad for the site, right? Even if I wish that the the origin of the mention were more positive. But I do think that it is a thing that we just as human beings are not very good at. I think this is like a low stakes example of that on a relative basis. I think the behavior of some

people over the last, say, 18 months is a much higher stakes example of that, which is why stuff like this tends to bum me out a little bit, just because I wish we were better societally at helping people kind of process these things, which isn't to say that, again, like Adam Wainwright drawing inspiration from us is like a really low stakes example of this. But it does provide an opportunity for us to talk about how this stuff works so that as people are trying to better understand it, they can. And as I said yesterday, like no model is perfect. And we know that there are places where we could stand to improve our playoff odds. But I think, you know, when Ben Clemens looked at just how well those odds have done over the last couple of years. He put it really nicely, right? Like a low probability run doesn't mean the probability is broken. It means that something incredible is happening. And I think that the way that the Cardinals ended the season

certainly qualifies as that. And, you know, they don't really have anything to be ashamed of in terms of their performance yesterday. Like when Ben wrote his recap, he put it well. It's like it took until there, dodgers like last possible you know regulation at bat for them to to get it done so he pitched well yeah adam wayward is a g like oh yeah he's awesome yeah it was like so disappointing you know but this is just sort of one of those unintended aspects of doing our job where it's like oh yeah this guy really doesn't know what the hell he's talking about but he's misdirecting

anger generally at us and i don't know how you know it's just weird to think about how you handle that as a person yeah i know it was weird for me yeah yeah yeah it's like could you imagine if like david lynch was like yeah the fan people there, I don't like them. I'd be upset for a long time. Yeah. Yeah. Well, hopefully we will see him in the booth in the future. And if we have the opportunity to chat about the playoff odds,

we would welcome it. But we will close by saying, hey, Chris Taylor, things have gone so well for you since leaving the Mariners. We're happy for you. And that walk off was cool. So there you go. I think we can leave it there so that Dylan can edit this episode.

Games are starting here in short order on the AL side. We'll be back soon with some further playoff content, an email show, and some other stuff. But for now, Eric, do you have anything that you would like to plug? Just folks, you know, go to the site. Try to encourage people to get an ad-free subscription to the site. Yeah. And stay off social media. Though if you want to follow Eric on social media.

Don't even give it. What? How about the prospect account? Sure. Okay. So FG underscore prospects on Twitter, which has a bunch of, and then delete your Twitter app.

Has a lot of very fun prospect video and we'll have updates on board movement and stuff like that. So if you want to keep track of all the good prospect content at Fangraphs, that's a good place to do it. In the meantime, I will say, hey, Eric, thanks for joining me. Thanks for having me. Bye. That'll do it for today. For those of you who might not have seen the news, Eddie Robinson, who had been the oldest living major leaguer and was an occasional guest of this podcast, passed away on Monday at age 100. Robinson was a baseball lifer. He played for 13

years in the 18 American League and appeared with every AL franchise of his time except for the Boston Red Sox. He was a four-time All-Star and had been the last surviving player from Cleveland's 1948 World Series championship team. Playing in every series game, he batted.300. After his playing career was done, he went on to coach for Baltimore before switching to player development and scouting, both for them and for several other teams. He was the GM of the Atlanta Braves from 1972 to 1976, and then had that role with the Rangers from 1976 to 1982. He worked as a scout and consultant for former Yankees owner George Steinbrenner in the early 1980s, and his last year in baseball was as a scout for the

Boston Red Sox in 2004. In the two interviews Eddie did with us, he shared stories of playing against Jackie Robinson, Wiz Satchel Paige, and talked about what it was like to be part of the great Yankees teams of the mid-1950s, as well as his friendships with Ted Williams, Yogi Berra, and other legends of the game. We were struck not only by his well of knowledge and keen perspective on life and baseball,

but also his great affection for the game and its place in society. He and his wife, Betty, even shared some tips on how to have a long and successful marriage. Our thoughts were with her and with Eddie's four sons. Eddie, you will be missed. You can support Effectively Wild on Patreon by going to patreon.com slash effectively wild. The following five listeners have already signed up and pledged some small monthly amount to keep the podcast going, keep us ad free, and get access to a few special perks. Nate Buchholz, Michael Mendoza, Marcus Cleaver, Daniel Powell, and Tosca Seltz. Thank you so much.

You can join our Facebook group at facebook.com slash group slash effectively wild, and you can rate, review, and subscribe to the podcast on iTunes and other podcast platforms. Keep your questions and comments for us coming via email at podcast at fangraphs.com or via the Patreon messaging system if you are a supporter. Thanks to Dylan Higgins for his editing assistance, including removing that flub. I'll be back later this week with new guest co-hosts and new episodes, but until then, enjoy the Division Series. Thanks so much. and fulfill all his old athletic aspirations. But apparently now there's some complications.

But while I am lying here trying to fight the tears...