Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 2067: The Playoff Frankenstein Draft

Episode Date: October 3, 2023

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about the Mariners, the Cubs, and other teams that just missed the playoffs, discuss the firings of Giants manager Gabe Kapler and Mets manager Buck Showalter (19:21), and then (32:51) bring on FanGraphs writers Michael Baumann and Ben Clemens to assemble an ultimate playoff team by drafting components of […]

If baseball were different, how different would it be? Players growing third arms and infields in the tree Anything is fair game, even Kike's dirty pants And maybe if you're lucky, we'll cope all by chance. You never know precisely where it's gonna go. By definition, Effectively Wild. Hello and welcome to episode 2067 of Effectively Wild, a Fangraphs baseball podcast brought to you by our Patreon supporters. I'm Meg Relia of Fangraphs and I'm joined as always, or as I often am, by Ben Lindberg of The Ringer. Ben, how are you? I'm doing okay. We have a playoff field. We do. Yeah. I guess maybe I'll just lay it out for anyone who

gets their baseball news exclusively from Effectively Wild, which some people seem to, and they're just in suspense waiting for the podcast to come out so that they know who made the playoffs. Well, here's who. The Blue Jays are going to play the Twins. And the Rangers are going to play the Rays. And the Orioles will face the winner of Rays-Rangers. The Astros will face the winner of Twins-Jays. In the National League, you've got Diamondbacks at Brewers. You've got Marbacks at Brewers. You've got Marlins at Phillies. The Braves face the winners of Phillies, Marlins, and the Dodgers face the winner of Brewers, D-backs.

Now, there are a couple of teams that I did not name there that were in the running right up until the end of the regular season and sadly did not quite make it. One of those teams is near and dear to you, or at least has been at many times. I don't know if they are at this very moment, but they have certainly had an impact on your emotional state over the past days and weeks and months. So I am sorry to say that the Mariners missed the playoffs. How are you feeling? How are you dealing with this near miss? Well, I'm disappointed, Ben. I remain disappointed.

It felt like it was kind of all there for them to have the potential to like win the division and then to not make it at all feels not awesome, you know? So there's that piece of it. But I had very low expectations for this team coming into the season, or rather, like, I had expectations sort of around where they ended up, where I thought, you know, the pitching's really good. Julio's Julio. That might be enough for them to, like to sneak in on the third wild card, but as we've talked about, we don't have to relitigate that conversation.

I was pretty underwhelmed by their offseason, and a lot of that remained true. The pitching was really good, especially in the second half. Julio was incandescent, and they got a tremendous season out of jp crawford and cow rally hit 30 home runs and i think that you know they have a number of young guys who were called upon under less than ideal circumstances and really rose to the occasion like it was great to see you know they weren't like the best pitchers in the american league or anything but like to see bryce miller Miller and Brian Wu have the seasons that they did was really cool. But they remain a club that I think is like intentionally under resourcing itself. That was a sentiment that was shared by Cal Raleigh.

Yes. Raleigh. And in a moment where I think he demonstrated his leadership of this team, backed up by JP Crawford. And so I don't know. I hope that they, and by they, I mostly mean their senior front office leadership and their ownership group, really think long and hard this winter about what kind of club they want to be because i think that the way that the al west unfolded this year was a pretty clear lesson in like what can happen when you're a team that is good at like developing players on both sides of the ball and or a team that is willing to spend money even if it is a little bit ahead of schedule to try to make your club better and is willing to keep pushing the chips in when things kind of go wrong

so the astros and the rangers are aren't gonna like get worse i mean they might get worse every now and again but they are they're good clubs and the r Rangers have more reinforcements coming from the farm so if they want to be serious as a franchise like there's gonna need to be either a dramatic leap forward in terms of their ability to develop hitting which they haven't really shown a ton of capacity to do I mean like they helped Julio along the way but like I I don't know maybe this is just confirm you know confirmation bias when it comes to his big the way but like I I don't know maybe this is just confirm you know confirmation bias when it comes to his big league performance but like I think that guy was probably going to be fine but like that has not been a point of strength which doesn't mean that they haven't had homegrown hitters come up but the strength is clearly on the pitching side so they either need

to like raise themselves a little bit and by that I don't mean like raise from a building perspective I mean like as in the Tampa Bay Rays where they you know clearly have a strength in in pitching but are able to get good stuff out of hitters too or they need to commit payroll and they probably need to do both so they get to decide that and i will be paying close attention it's unfortunate because you know with the exception of a couple of marquee guys several of whom are pitchers like this market isn't gonna be particularly fruitful from a position player perspective so they kind of missed out by you know not adding last year and i guess by pissing off kyle seager a couple years ago and not being able to sign his brother. So, you know, that's frustrating.

I hope that they decide to be a serious club because, I don't know, it's so weird. I really enjoy so many of their players and the vibe in the dugout seems great. And all you had to do was watch their games the last couple of days to see that the city is really invested in them and really wants them to be a good club and is showing up to to demonstrate that but like i don't know i don't want to pick on anyone but like when sam hagerty is you're starting dh in a must-win game

like something has gone very wrong you know like you're you're dealing with kind of fundamental roster construction issues and i know he hits lefty well, but like that's, it's relaxed. It's Sam Haggerty. It's fine for me to be like, this is not, you know, the guy, right. You know, like think about the guys who got really significant numbers of plate appearances from them this year and down the stretch as they were trying to lock in the division. Like, so I feel disappointed. We are a couple of days removed. So like, you know what I said to my television the night that like J.P. Crawford walked them off in the run up to that, the frustration I felt like that gets to stay between me and the baseball gods. I don't have to say all those words because I think a lot of them would get bleeped.

But yeah, it's disappointing. But like, you know, the Mariners weren't the only club that kind of tripped on their way to the final days. I was going to ask you about that, actually. Yeah, because there's at least another contender for a similarly heartbreaking exit, I suppose. I called it a near miss. I guess it's like the George Carlin bit about if two planes almost collide. They call it a near miss. It's really a near hit.

This was really kind of a near hit, I guess. What a strange season for the Mariners and also for the Cubs, the other team that I was going to bring up here. Because initially, the Mariners seemed like they just weren't really going to be in the running and fans were frustrated and they weren't that much fun to watch and then they totally turned it on and were the hottest team in baseball and were having so much fun and they seemed like they were definitely going to get in and then it kind of fell apart in September I think they went 11 and 17 right and the Cubs had a slow start, but promising run differential wise, at least. And then they got hot and they didn't sell at the deadline. And it looked like, OK, there may be even more of a lock than the Mariners. And they did try to get better. Of course, they offloaded a lot of their old core and embarked on a rebuild. But the rebuild has come along and they've spent a decent amount of money over this previous winter trying to cement the rebuild. It's interesting

Raleigh's comments, which you mentioned, he didn't shirk responsibility on the players part, but he did say, you look over at the other locker room right there, referring to the Rangers, because the Mariners were playing the Rangers who clinched a playoff spot at the other locker room right there referring to the Rangers because the Mariners were playing the Rangers who clinched a playoff spot at the Mariners expense when the Mariners were eliminated and they've added more in free agency than anybody else and you saw where it got them this year there's more than one way to skin a cat that's for sure but going out and getting those big names people have done it people have been there people who are leaders people who have shown time and time again that they can be successful in this league is definitely going to help this clubhouse and help this team.

Yeah, I mean, if you're the Orioles or the Reds or the Diamondbacks and you're calling up a bunch of guys who are really good and young, then maybe you don't necessarily need people who have done it and have been there because they're all really good. But once you call up some of those guys, it does help to go get some veterans. So he said, we have to do that to make a commitment to winning, to keep up. We've done a great job of growing some players here within the farm system, but sometimes you've got to go out and you have to buy. And that's just the name of the game. He also kind of called out the Paul Seawald trade at the deadline, and he actually later apologized for those comments. He said it wasn't a time to talk about what ifs in that scenario, but he wasn't wrong. And I guess this season as a whole was not the best demonstration of that being the name of the game. Because of course, there were a lot of teams that spent that are similarly not in the playoff field. And there

are some teams with low payrolls that are in the playoff field, but the AL West specifically is, I guess a good object lesson in that because the Rangers just squeaked in and the Astros just squeaked in ahead of them with the tie break and the Mariners did not squeak in and they spent a lot less than those other two teams did. So I guess in that sense, you get what you pay for, but with the Mariners, I wanted to ask which you felt like was a more heartbreaking.

I mean, I know your heart was more broken by the Mariners than the Cubs, but in the abstract, because they both ended up just on the outside looking in, I guess the Cubs were just a game out, right? And I think the Mariners' playoff odds peaked at 86.8% to make the playoffs on August 31st. The Cubs' playoff odds, I believe, peaked at 92.4% on September 6th. So slightly higher odds to make the playoffs and slightly later. However, the Mariners did have higher division winning odds than the Cubs did. There was a better chance that the Mariners could win that division. So given that, how close they were, how much of a lock they each looked like, and I guess just everything else going on with those two teams and their trajectories, which hurts more. I guess if you're a Mariners fan fan it's probably hard to be unbiased

about this question but uh yeah it's like impossible for me probably but let me try i think it's the mariners but let me tell you let me tell you why well maybe it's the cubs here's the thing about the cubs like That division isn't very good. It's a lot better than the AL Central. It's a lot better than the AL Central, but it's not as good as either of the East or West. Is it? No, it's not. I think it's actually the Cubs, because if you're trying to emerge from the rebuild and you have a really bad Cardinals team, it really sucks to not make the postseason. Like it really sucks to not win your division, candidly. But it sucks to not make the postseason. I would feel like it was a really big missed opportunity

if I were a Cubs fan and I'm looking around. And, you know, there were points this year where it felt like, you know, and Houston ended up winning the the west but it took them until the final day to do so you know you could argue that in a year where the al west was not settled and you had just like a really bad a's team that like to not be able to pull it out like that's that feels crummy i think they're both really bad, Ben. I don't know. They're both bad. They're bad and they're bad in slightly different ways.

I think, you know, this feels wild to say because they've had their own stretches of being stingy in a way that was not at all commensurate with like the amount of money they're making. amount of money they're making i don't know that i think this from like a baseball ops perspective but in terms of a commitment to payroll perspective i maybe have greater confidence than the cubs going forward so maybe that softens the blow a little bit whereas i just i don't know if seattle has the the will to kind of spend. And DePoto has not been, he has not proven himself to be a GM who can persuade his ownership to the wisdom of that when the opportunity calls. Now, but it could be that they emerge

from this offseason with like Otani or like, you know, they're like, hey, we got really great pitching, but like, let's go get Yamamoto. Like, I don't know. You know, we'll have a lot of time to sort of analyze that. But they have a lot of they have a lot of needs going forward. And they're going to have they're going to have to be like a really great pitching staff in Julio.

And then like, I don't know. Right. Yeah. And we are, by the way, going to spend most of this episode talking about teams that did make the playoffs. Yes. Just in case you were worried about that. And I, here's my pledge to you ben and to our listeners like yeah after today we can be done with mariners yes you're just you're excising

the last bit of yeah but i i i know that it can wear you know after a while so we'll be done after this but it is it is a notable baseball storyline i don't think i'm shoehorning in something that's not good to have some some fandom perspective on this podcast since i'm sort of the the neutral impartial party often when it comes to teams and you know for you to to feel the fandom again as you did this year and last year i think it's good to have that perspective on the podcast sometimes too i think here's one case for the Cubs being more frustrating. I think the teams that they lost out to, they were better than probably. Yeah. Right? Like the Mariners certainly were in good position to make the playoffs. And so it's sad that it slipped out of their grasp.

But you can't really say that they were a better team than the Rangers or the Astros or that they were more deserving. Right. the Astros or that they were more deserving, right? Whereas the Cubs, they had roughly the same run differential as the Mariners, plus 96 to the Mariners plus 99. The Rangers and Astros were higher than that. The two teams ahead of the Cubs, the Diamondbacks, negative 15, the Marlins, negative 56, right? So there's some flukiness going on there where you feel like maybe we were the better team we deserve to have that spot on the other hand i guess you could say well the cubs have not really been bad for that long you know they haven't gone through that much suffering lately historically they have but but in recent years obviously they won a World Series in 2016. Mariners never done that. And also, they haven't been out of it for that long.

They made the playoffs in 2020. And yeah, I know that was 2010. But they made the playoffs in 2018 too, right? And I know it was painful for a lot of people that that core was kind of disassembled. But in retrospect, are you sorry that that happened? I don't know. Not as much as you were at the time, probably. They've kind of come out of this maybe more quickly than you expected. And maybe they're sort of on the upswing and you feel like better days are ahead, potentially. Like, I didn't expect them to make the playoffs this year. I sort of did expect the

Mariners to make the playoffs. And obviously, they had the catharsis of finally making it last year and ending the streak and the drought. But I think it was sort of hoped and assumed and expected that won't be a one-year thing. That's the start of something. We'll be back. Whereas maybe not. So I think in that sense, you could make a good case for either team. They're both tough. I mean, there are other teams that just ended up falling short, like the Padres. Obviously, that's a whole different thing. We've devoted entire episodes to the Padres. struggle and sadness as opposed to, yeah, I guess maybe if you got your hopes up because they turned it on at the end and they actually got above 500 and won a couple extra in games and got close, but they had dug themselves such a deep hole that I think probably most Padres fans had come to terms with it by the end. And then the Reds were only a couple of games out, but the Reds felt

very much like we're ahead of schedule. Yes. This is fun and exciting. Like if it all comes together this year, that would be wonderful with Votto and everything. But if it doesn't, hey, look at all these great young guys that came up. Like we're a force to be reckoned with now. This is not our last chance, you know. So I don't know if that was like it's gravy or we're playing with house money, but that's what it felt like to me, I guess, is just like, hey, this is fun. I didn't expect the Reds to be in the running till the end of the season and so entertaining this season. So they'll have their day, right?

You can't ever count on that for sure. But it seems like they will have their day if they support that team and spend. That's always the question with some of these groups. So I think it kind of comes down to the Cubs and the Mariners, and they both have their cases for painful misses. But look, a lot of teams made the playoffs, and congrats to them. We're going to do a draft for most of this episode. We're going to bring on Michael Bauman and Ben Clemens, and we are going to draft components of playoff teams. So we're just going to take several different categories,

and we're going to assemble our playoff rosters from the various other playoff rosters, and we will pick out the best bits of each team and talk about the highlights and lowlights of those rosters. I guess there's really only one other really notable bit of news that maybe we should dispense with quickly, which is just a couple of managerial dismissals. Yeah. Your preseason prediction that there would be an in-season managerial change just barely came true. Yeah. Just under the wire, buzzer beater.

So you get a prediction correct at Gabe Koppler's expense because he was fired by the Giants. And then Buck Showalter was pretty much fired. He was sort of forced to resign, right? He was told that he would be fired if he did not resign. He had one year left on his contract. David Stearns comes in to run the mets says i want someone new i guess the giants decision is more surprising maybe because there was not a change like farhan zaidi was the one doing this or the one releasing a statement about it and there'd been some reporting that made it seem

like they were probably both going to be back and safe and it obviously wasn't like as notable a failure for the giants this season as it was for the mets so what did you make of of both of those moves well i think that like um look it's not done or anything yet and he's got um potentially a month of baseball left to manage but like felt like the writing was sort of on the wall for Showalter given their performance and also like the hiring of Stearns because maybe we are anticipating Craig Council, New York Met's manager. Yeah. I don't know why he'd want to necessarily. Like it seems like he's been there with Milwaukee for a while. He's, you know, from the Midwest.

He's been super successful. He's well-liked. He played for the Brewers. Like, everyone loves him. You know, maybe he'd get a raise if he worked for the Mets. But, like, man, things are going great for Craig Council. Would you want to just risk the Mets of it all, as he would say? You know?

Like, would you want to do that when things are going so well? I don't know. Maybe a big pay bump. Yeah. So there's like that piece of it. And then in terms of Kapler, like, I don't know, man. Like, I think that on the one hand, like, he just this is the roster he was given. roster he was given and maybe he didn't optimize how it was deployed the same way that he did in a year where he got like incredible overperformance from a bunch of 30 somethings yeah the year that

we were all like they're so incredible they're amazing and like they they were but like maybe not in a way that was sustainable so maybe he he left some runs on the table, as it were. But this felt to me largely like, hey, we're not getting rid of Farhan. We had a disappointing season, and this is a way to strike out and try to move forward in a new, more winning direction, even if some of it is sort

of not his fault but also i think a good thing for us to keep in mind with all of this stuff is that like and i don't say this like i have any particular insight into the capler situation but like you know we see so little of what managers jobs actually entail in the public. And so the fact that these guys are being let go when like, you know, they just had like a bad, I don't know, like for Kapler, I don't know, maybe there was other stuff. Maybe there was interpersonal politics that we're not aware of that kind of made it necessary for them to move on. But I guess when you're a guy who like gets heralded as this like managerial savant because of potentially kind of random overperformance that you maybe can't be surprised when underperformance by a roster you didn't assemble kind of tanks you i don't know it seems

like a potentially consistent thing if you're like hey i'm the guy who could get good results and then even with a roster of kind of so-so pieces sometimes you can't do that like i don't know i do think that show walter like well i am given to understand from met's twitter which is a very dangerous way to start a sentence but i am given to understand from met's twitter that there might have been some actual like times when the when the strategic piece of it and the way that platoons were deployed or guys were put in the lineup or relievers were called upon was maybe suboptimal. I don't know if that was always a big problem or if it was one that ended up being costly. Yeah. I mean, what fan base doesn't think that about their manager, right? Almost everyone does. It's true. It's more true of some than others, but yeah. I will say that in those same quarters, even last year when the Mets had a much better season,

they still weren't in love with all of Showalter's choices, which again, to your point, every fan base has its moments right but i don't think that it their objections were necessarily attributable entirely to where the record ended up is all i'm saying so i don't know it's like both of these seem unsurprising to me so yeah i don't really have much more on it what do you think meanwhile it seems like the padres everyone's uh getting to stay yeah according to peter seidler he's uh he's happy he wants to run it back with preller and melvin let's give it another go at least that's the indication thus far yeah i mean my main takeaway from this is that these guys were both very recently manager of the year, right? Buck was manager of the year last year, right? And

Kapler was manager of the year in 2021. And I mean, Showalter has been manager of the year four different times, right? It's just, how can we ever know anything, right? I mean, from afar, this is hardly the first time that someone has won that award and then gotten the boot extremely quickly, right? And you can't go from being manager of the year to let's fire this guy. I mean, that can't be like a true talent change in your managing, I don't think. Granted, manager of the year, this is a BBWA vote. It doesn't necessarily reflect how the team feels or how ownership feels or how the executive feels. But when a manager gets great results like that, it really is just,

what have you done for me lately? Literally this season. There's just not much of a window where it's like, hey, he was the best manager in baseball last year or a couple of years ago. Like, hey, he was the best manager in baseball last year or a couple of years ago. I can't move on from him now. And it's probably not usually that he got worse at managing. It could be that maybe the relationship deteriorated behind the scenes or it could be, you know, different group of guys, different clubhouse vibe. Who knows? Maybe you connect with one set of players and not with another, even if there's a lot of overlap. But man, it's just he's won manager of the year awards with a lot of different teams. Clearly, like he's pretty good at it.

Like a lot of people have decided he's good at it and have given him awards because of how he did at this job. And yet he didn't even get to finish out this contract because, you know, it's always subject to I have a new boss now. My new boss might prefer their own person. Well, and I think that, you know, we can look at Showalter and say that he has had a great deal of success in his career. And I think we can also look at him and say that there have been times where he hasn't necessarily made choices that, I'm trying to think of a specific example, because wouldn't that be

helpful for my argument then exactly but like where he hasn't always necessarily like done the thing that how do i want to put this i don't think that he is necessarily antagonistic toward analytics as an approach to organizing your decisions within baseball. But I don't know if he's enthusiastic about that either. And so I could understand, even if you were like, look, a lot happened this year, some of which is probably on the manager, much of which is just across the board

underperformance on the part of this team. But I'm David Stearnss and I view the game a particular way. And I want to be like on the same page with whoever is making those decisions night in and night out. And so I want to be like secure and confident in that. And so it's time to move on. Like I wouldn't be shocked if that were true. I'd find that persuasive. Right. So even if it doesn't end up being counsel. Right. Yeah. So, you know, it doesn't necessarily have to be like a huge reflection on him. Like you said, like sometimes there's just a new guy and the new guy wants to do things a particular way. and he's either not convinced that that's the way that you want to do things or he just has someone in mind, you know? So that's, yeah. Yeah. You can kind of tell with managers, I was going to say of a certain age, it's not always purely age-related, but it's often experience-related or when you came up and started doing the job because that job has

changed quite dramatically over the past couple decades, and what is expected of a manager, what is allowed for a manager. And if you came up like Buck, pre-hardcore sabermetrics and close communication or more than that, often just sort of dictating what to do or just having the manager be a voice in the discussion as opposed to the be all end all. Then I think you're used to that. And sometimes you hear managers from that generation, you know, they're not going to like bad mouth analytics. We're past that. Certainly, you're not going to get a job if you're like, I don't need to see the numbers. But, you know, there's more of a measured qualified, like, I think there's a place for analytics kind of thing, you know?

Or like, when it matches what I think, then I trust it, sort of. Which, look, I mean, I'm not saying that being all in on the numbers is the only way to go and is clearly always better. only way to go and is clearly always better. Perhaps there are things that they are able to discern by not just acquiescing to everything or being fully quantified life as a manager, but there is kind of a difference. If you're someone who's coming up now in this environment, then you almost are going to be and have to be kind of on the same page as the people upstairs because you're not going to get that job otherwise. Whereas if you're Showalter or if you're Dusty Baker or if you're Bruce Bochy and you hail from that time

and you're very accomplished, then you can still get a job and command respect in the clubhouse and maybe preserve a degree of autonomy that if you're just starting out now, you probably wouldn't. Yeah, I think that that's right. All right. Well, we should probably get to our draft so that people can hear a little bit of playoff previewing here

before the playoffs begin because they start soon. Tomorrow, Ben. They start tomorrow. Yeah, Tuesday, which could be today by the time people are hearing this. Could be months ago by the time some of you are hearing this, and then you'll know whether we're making good picks or not. Spoiler.

But, yeah, we are just going to be watching a ton of baseball over the next couple days. Hopefully you all will be. Just it'll be wild card, wall to wall. So enjoy all of that, and we will reconvene later in the week to talk about the way it went down. But right now we will take a quick break, and we will be back with Ben and Bauman to draft parts of playoff teams. But wait, before that break, this has been slightly less in the past,

bringing you two updates, which may not be updates at all, because you, relative to me right now, are in the future. The first is that after we had this conversation about managerial firings, there was another managerial firing, Phil Nevin of the Angels.

Not as much mystery to that one. Not that Phil Nevin was primarily responsible for the Angels being bad again. The Angels were bad before Nevin, and they'll probably be bad after Nevin. Also, the upcoming draft was recorded before the announcement on Monday that Brandon Woodruff has a right shoulder injury, which is going to keep him out of the wildcard series and maybe more of the playoffs should the Brewers advance. So you will hear us talk a fair amount about the Brewers and about their rotation specifically.

Just bear in mind that you know more now than we did then. OK, now let's take that break. math equation you're all about these stats we've compiled cause you listen to Perfectively Wild with Ben Lindberg and Meg Rowley come for the ball banter's free

baseball is a simulation it's all just one big conversation Effectively Wild Well, on episode 1987, the last episode before the beginning of the regular season, we were joined by Michael Bauman and Ben Clemens to make predictions about the upcoming season. Now we're joined again by Bauman and Clemens on the first episode after the end of the regular season

to talk about the playoffs, but not to make predictions about it because we got to draw the line somewhere. And playoff predictions is where I draw it. Although that's not where the Fangraph staff draws it because you've all made predictions, but not on this podcast. Not right now.

Hello, guys. I made really chalky predictions that I realize now I'm going to miss the deadline to correct because I'm on this podcast. Oh, I haven't made my predictions, so I'll be making them while you guys aren't. Well, I'm not.

Oh, well, you should hash out our differences about making predictions while you're here, Other Ben. Here's the secret, guys. I ask for things ahead of when I need them because I know that there is often, you know, like life gets in the way. There's slippage. There's, you know, it's good to have a little buffer. So it's okay. You can do it after if you want. Well, I look

forward to reading all of your predictions. No, you don't. I was going to say. Appropriate that I will prevent you from making off thethe-wall predictions because you're on this podcast right now and you'll just have no choice to be Mr. Chalk, which is the way that I would want it. I actually think of Michael as Mr. Chalk. He's the one who gave me that nickname. He can't be Mr. Chalk. Yeah, I was going to say, Ben, you called out other Ben while he was in Sweden for having really boring postseason production. Say it to my face while I'm on the podcast also. Conflictations.

Well, we're here to talk about the playoffs a little bit and to preview the playoffs after a fashion by doing a little draft, something we haven't really done before. You guys excited? You guys in a playoff mood and mindset? How are you feeling about the beginning? I'm preparing to wear I-95 out. I'm going back and forth between Philadelphia and Baltimore, at least for the first week or two. So I'm excited for that. Yeah, I love the first week or two of the base.

I know that people have a lot of complaints with the new system and the third wild card and all that. I love it. I think the way that these games are now set up is just so fun. have a lot of complaints with the new system and like the the third wild card and all that i love it i think the way that these games are now set up is just so fun the first week of the like the wild card round the division series are like almost up there with like world cup march madness in terms of just like you can just park in front of the tv for 14 hours which i won't be able to do because the phillies and marlins despite being two East Coast teams, are the late game for the entire wildcard round. Yeah, what's up with that? I don't know.

I'm really excited to get home at 2 o'clock in the morning for the next three days. Do you think they just wanted to maximize how much unbuttonedness that folks could see in primetime? And so they're like, the Phillies, we must put them in. Or you got to get it past the water show. Get as much of Nick Castellanos after 10 p.m. as you can. There are children watching.

Yeah. It's almost time for playoff Castellanos, right? Oh, man. He starts making incredible defensive plays again. Can't wait. The Phillies have a tough act to follow for you, Michael, because you covered them last year in person and they gave you quite a thrill. So I don't know whether they'll be able to match or top that, but I wish you the best. Yeah, I'm looking forward to it.

I suspect this run will not be as long as last year's run for reasons we'll get into in the draft. Okay. Well, Meg, this was your concept here. You want to explain what we're doing? It feels very evenly matched. You know, there are a lot of really great individual units on all of these teams. But just in terms of like an across the board domination when it comes to all aspects of the game, you know, everybody has their things that are kind of vulnerable. And so I thought it would be fun for us to construct a baseball team. So we are going to draft the individual pieces of this.

And Lindbergh, you supplemented this so we will be drafting an offense a defense base running unit a starting rotation a bullpen and a manager we're not going to do those things in order it'll be mix and match so people can think about what is likely to get picked off first and sort of prioritize their drafting that way potentially but at the end of this exercise the four of us will have a baseball team and we will see kind of what we make of it we don't really have any stakes because like how are you gonna how are you gonna evaluate this it's just for for for fun and giggles but rather than doing sort of a team by team preview we thought this might be a fun way to

to look at the start of the postseason we should should say this applies to all playoff teams, not just those in the wildcard round, but I'm sure that the wildcard round teams will make their appearances as we draft. Yeah, I guess there's some way we could try to come up with some Frankenstein stat result to see who won this thing, but it would be weird because all the teams play different numbers of games. I don't know how that would work exactly. But yeah, we'll know. We'll know.

We'll know whose component parts had good postseasons and whose didn't. And maybe this will get us all prepared by just reviewing the class of each kind of thing that a baseball team can be good at here. each kind of thing that a baseball team can be good at here. And also, yeah, positional scarcity enters into this because we can each choose which category we want to draft from at any point and which box we want to check. So if we think that there's something that not a lot of teams are very good at, then maybe those will all go off the board first. There's some strategy here. Will managers emerge as the kickers of this draft? I mean, who knows?

We're going to find out. Yeah. Managers was a late addition to the draft. I figured it's probably not something we would do in a regular season draft. But in the playoffs, it does seem to matter more. I don't know how well we can actually predict which managers will manage well. But there's certainly an outsized influence. And there are certain managers who have distinguished themselves in one way or another in past postseasons.

Whether that is predictive or not, I don't know. But I guess we'll see who inspires the most confidence in us. Yeah, we're going to find out. All right. Well, I didn't determine a draft order. All I know is that Bauman wanted to go first because he really wanted to. Yeah. Well, I'm taking a page from your book, which is you have no compunctions about asking people for stuff.

And sometimes they say yes because they're just so shocked. So I figured I'd try it. We do generally let our guests go first on these things, I guess. We do generally let our guests go first on these things, I guess. And it's not like we've done this before, this particular draft. So we can't go in order or say it's my turn or your turn. I'll agree to snake format too if I get first. That's how much I care about this. Yeah.

Yeah. Maybe this should be a snake. We usually don't do snake, but this seems like one where maybe we should do snake. So someone keep track of whose turn it is because I get confused. I'm doing it. I'm doing it, I guess. Wow. We're doing Snake?

Ben? I'll keep track. I've got a little board out there in my spreadsheet. Okay. So who's going second? I consent to Bauman drafting first and then Ben. And then I don't know. How we gonna figure this out i'll i'll let you go third meg because you're sad about the mariners okay every time i'm on in october you just take shots at meg and the mariners

this is this is not a shot this is i'm trying to be kind sorry you're just patronizing her all right what's the the number one pick that you just had to have all right i want the braves offense i don't think anything matters like i'm considering like going and getting lunch uh and just making my next six picks is the the last six picks in the draft i think that there are a few teams the dodgers being one the astros being another where you have two like absolute tentpole hitters and uh lineups like the phillies that go like eight or nine deep and the braves are the only ones who do both and if you look at the i don't just like some of the guys who have just been really good or just have just been like pretty good this season.

It's like guys like Austin Riley who can take over a postseason game. I think this is the biggest gap between one and two in a category that matters. Yeah. Well, it is arguably the best offense ever. We're very close to it. Although there are some other teams that have matched them pretty closely down the stretch at least i never know where to draw the line and when you get down to like well that's too small sample but if you take the full season sample

then you're pulling in people who aren't even playing on that team anymore and won't be in the playoffs so if you do sort of subdivide the season, then there are teams that have kind of kept pace with Atlanta over the last couple months at least. If Philly's had a big homer month, it doesn't matter. This Braves offense is so good. Yeah. Of course, you don't get the base running component.

You don't get Acuna's steals, right? So once he gets on base he's uh you have to pinch run for ronald lacuna jr with whatever base running unit you choose here i don't know how this works i guess we just have a bunch of guys like waiting to to run as soon as our hitters swing that's how it works then i might have to move my base running up and down something like that yeah i have to say when bauman said i want the first pick is the only one thing that matters i thought he was going to make some off the wall pick instead of like by far the consensus number one i think is a tier above everything else

so i was very excited to have the second pick i was like oh great yeah he's just gonna do something awful and i'll get the braves offense for free right so instead, I'm going to do something off the wall. And I would like the Brewers defense. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, that's pretty good. I think basically that I don't want to step on your guys' toes, but there's a lot of teams that I don't care to pick between where I'm just kind of equivalent.

And I know that I'll get to pick again before Michael can pick pitchers. And so I think I'm just fine with any of the top three starters. So let me go take something kind of unique and take the Brewers defense. Yeah, they were top of my defense board. So you stole that one. Yeah, I think they're like the definitely wouldn't normally make sense to pick something that isn't hitting or starters first. But I'm just going to pick a pitcher on the wheel and then

batting team after that. If you don't pick the Braves, all the other teams are kind of the same to me, hitting. It's about positional scarcity. This is why I always pick a tight end early in fantasy football. There's a lot of football in this one. Yeah, me too.

I... I will take Travis Kelsey, in other words. I have heard of him. I was about to go on a Taylor Swift rant, and I'm going to not do it. I don't know, but okay. Meg's turn. It's my turn. Now I'm thinking about how annoyed I was about Taylor Swift's course yesterday. Okay, well, it's me, Meg's turn. It's my turn. Now I'm thinking about how annoyed I was about Taylor Swift's discourse yesterday.

Okay, well, it's me, Meg. And the question always remains, am I going to talk myself into a stupid pic? Because I have a penchant for doing that. I don't know if this is off the board or not. I don't know if this is quirky. I don't think it is i'm gonna take brewer's starters that was gonna be my pick yeah that's what i would have picked if i did not take brewers defense yeah

i'm gonna take brewer starters and i know that like i mean like the the gap is very narrow over a full season i know that like there have been a lot of good rotations this year the twins rotation really great the rays rotation has been inexplic of good rotations this year. The Twins rotation, really great. The Rays rotation has been inexplicably good. We still have to get to the bottom of the Zach Littell business. But I think that this unit is just so well optimized for postseason. And yeah, they're going to have to throw their best guys in the wild card. But they get to throw their best guys in the wild card, you guys.

So I'm taking the Berber starters. And I'm sorry, Ben, to take Corbin Burns, your one true love, away from you. But I'm doing it. I mean, I had a chance and passed on it. We all like Corbin Burns, I think. Yes, but Ben. Other Ben, it's a special thing for him. He's a Corbin Burns head.

Yeah, that is a good pick yeah i actually well i feel like there's some starting pitcher scarcity or i guess i feel like there's a drop off maybe after the top couple yeah so i i might take a starting rotation here but i think i won't take a starting rotation first i think i I'll take the Astros offense. So the Astros offense has actually matched Atlanta's, I believe, since the trade deadline. They have identical 130 WRC pluses. And I don't know if they feel like they did because they were missing Brantley for much of the season. And then, of course, Altuve was hurt for a while and Jordan was hurt for a while. But when they've had those guys all back and together, they've been clicking. They've looked like the Astros of old. biding their time all season.

We kind of forgot about them. They were kind of, you know, in the wildcard race. They were not leading the AL West for most of the season. And then they snuck up there and they overtook the Rangers with the tiebreaker on the last day of the regular season. And here we go again. It's playoff Astros, right? We've seen the Astros, even when they weren't very good in the regular season, kind of turn it on in October.

I don't know if that's an actual trait of theirs or not. I'm not someone who puts a lot of stock in previous postseason experience, though they certainly have a whole lot of that. But they've been really raking for months at this point. So because the Braves are off the board, I think I'm going to get my bats. And I get to go again, right? Yeah, because you made this a snake draft. I did.

You did that. Yeah. All right. Well, in that case, I guess I got to get my starting rotation and get the big couple categories off the board here. off the board here. I'm kind of torn between I guess there are maybe three in the running. Two I feel most strongly

about. I guess I'll take the fillies starting rotation. Yeah, that makes sense to me. Yeah. Alright. Oh crap, I'm up again. Here I was giving you a hard time and then I have to make a pick. Oh, crap. I'm up again. Here I was giving you a hard time, and then I have to make a pick.

Oh, I feel very nervous about this, because what do you do? You know, we could just put this in a soundboard and make re-extra drafts. I'm going to take the Rangers offense. I'm taking the Rangers offense. the Rangers offense I'm taking the Rangers offense now I know that like they haven't gotten as consistent a production from the sort of bottom half of that lineup as they did in the beginning of the season they've had to deal with some injury scares but like man Corey Seager and Marcus Simeon are really good at hitting they are just really very good and i like some of their ancillary pieces very much they they don't hit as many home runs as the braves or even the non-virgin twins but they

they can send it out of the park which is useful come uh come october so i'm taking uh i'm taking those texas rangers who eliminated the Mariners. I can't do an Astros thing from a fan perspective. I might later, but I don't want to right now. Yeah, they certainly have had the depth, right? If you were going to draft just for depth, just for top to bottom of the lineup and number of, I don't know, qualified hitters who are above average, at least. Probably the Rangers would be up there. I've been sort of suspicious of their offense all season just because it was so much better than I expected it to be.

I thought they were going to be a pitching first team, and then they turned out to just mash. And a bunch of guys I really wasn't expecting a whole lot of started so hot. And then they kind of cooled down. I mean, they've still been a good hitting team in the second half of the season. Not as dominant. Not as dominant. You know, Josh Young is back and healthy.

And I continue to like Jonah Heim. And Leotie looks terrible. But that's, you know. Adolis Garcia. Yeah, I love Adolis Garcia. Love Adolis Garcia it 39 home runs incredible it's incredible stuff and yeah someone wrote about how he's not striking out as much i don't know some smart guy some prick i continue to think that you can get evan carter out with a well-placed

back foot breaking ball but we'll see if everybody keys in on that so yeah here we go all right well i now need to take pictures before bauman does and i actually feel like there's a big group of pictures that are all kind of the same and it's kind of a question of whether you want the pedigree or what has looked better recently and i'm gonna go off the board a little bit i guess and take the twin starters i like them i i think that having four really good starters is underrated and you know if i can't have corbin burns i wouldn't mind having pablo lopez but yeah i have also been unfashionably early on i'd say the twins just have like a lot of starting rotation depth and one thing that i don't hate is that they actually have five starters to it i would be comfortable counting as good starters.

The other consideration for me here, and maybe I'm stepping on Bauman's toes, but now we can just wait forever. No one's picking two starters is the Astros. Cause like, you know, they've, they've got a lot of pedigree and I'm just a little bit worried that

Framber has not been that good. And recently, I think baseball perspectives wrote about this very, very well that he started throwing his sinker so hard that it doesn't sink enough anymore. And he just stopped having his outlier ground ball rate. And I don't think Verlander is old Verlander. And so they both project really well. And when I was making my tier rankings, I had them a little higher than the Twins.

But the more I thought about it, the more I thought, thought i just really like the twins kind of well-roundedness and i would have loved to have the brewers or phillies but you know yeah i don't actually think the twins are that much worse i was uh i was casting admiring glances at the blue jays rotation yeah also very good i yeah this is this is great for me because i was hoping that before I made my second pick, you guys would all pick three. I had the Brewers first and sort of the Phillies, Astros, Twins, and Blue Jays. I was considering all of them for different reasons. And so now I'm just going to spend the rest of the draft trying to figure out which one of the Astros or Blue Jays I want. trying to figure out which one of the Astros or Blue Jays I want.

Yeah. I assume that we would have been interested in the Braves, right? If Freed and Morton hadn't had injury issues, then they would have been up there too. Well, and it's, you know, I think Strider is excellent, but he has been, I don't know if this is just a protracted inconsistent stretch or if he is, I don't know, he hasn't been as lights out. Really, since you wrote about him, Ben.

That's my fault. Yeah. So they're shakier than they've been at any point this season, I think, which is remarkable given some of the injuries they had early on. Who are you picking, Bauman? Wait, point of order here. Clarification question. If you draft the Twins, if you get five good starters

and then a couple of them go into the the bullpen and pitch this is what i would that i think it counts if they're injury replacements as starters though okay yeah if you do the postseason thing where you start now if you if you bring in what if you do the thing maybe this is almost like more of a manager thing if you have a manager who who is likely to to do that to have pitchers do kind of double duty and be swing men but what if you have your ace who enters in relief if you have a an ace who has done that sort of thing does that count or if you just have so much rotation depth that a guy or two gets shunted into the bullpen then that's just that's a different category

that's what i was wondering particularly with the phillies because ranger suarez is like their second best starting pitcher but like i don't know when he's gonna throw how much he's gonna throw out of the rotation versus the bullpen so yeah it's tricky yeah okay well maybe i feel like you get to pick four people as starters and then if there's an injury replacement, pick an extra. Yeah. And like those guys, like if you pick Verlander, like if you take the Astros and then Verlander appears in relief, obviously that's the starting rotation. Yeah, I agree.

I agree. Maybe you only get the starting innings. I would be happy with that too. That would be a clean way to do it. I don't know. Sure. All right. But you could consider when you're drafting a bullpen you could factor in are there starters who are going to be working in relief here so right okay all right my second pick i'm going to pick milwaukee's manager

because i think craig council is really really good and we we saw in 2018 what he can do in terms of creatively managing platoons and doing all that stuff we were talking about with the pitching staff. I think that there are a bunch of really good managers in the top group and a bunch of creative managers. But Council is a clear number one for me. Yep. Yeah, he was number one for me also. I wonder if he'll be number one for the mets soon but yeah i'm i'm rooting for tony vitello i'm trying to make this happen for them to hire tony vitello away from the university of tennessee because he's strong leader analytically focused

and not just because he's a really really angry italian guy. Oh, God, he's so angry. He's so angry and so Italian. He's got that sort of Gerard Butler in Den of Thieves kind of complexion. Don't you think the Mets have had enough of glowering managers, though? Do they really need that more? You think Buck glowers? Yes.

Constantly. SNY constantly cuts to him just staring menacingly at a real person. He has a rusty, glower face. Buck is cute. I mean, he does have a sense of humor, but it's a dry sense of humor. It looks like he's kind of wily. He glowers when he's joking. Totally agree with Ben.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, glower is kind of, most managers glower, I would say, right? Yeah. That's sort of the default state. But has Buck ever smiled? say. That's sort of the default state. But has Buck ever smiled? Yeah.

It's all implied. The smile is implied. I guess he smirks. Yeah, he's more of a smirker. That's a good distinction to draw. I was wondering where the first manager would go because I had counsel. I think he's just kind of like the consensus best manager in baseball now, right? I don't know what that's worth, but I think if you ask most people who's the best manager, they probably, he's like the longest tenured at this point. He's had success with that team, so why not? of player categories before we took a manager even though it's the postseason i guess that says something about how we prioritize the manager because like we all get into very manager heavy analysis yes the postseason rolls around and all of a sudden we're talking about pitching changes

and lineup decisions and pinch hitting or not pinch hitting or pinch running and not pinch running which implies that it matters a lot but even when we usually break those things down we always say like well that was maybe the wrong decision but also it decreased their win expectancy by like one percent or something it's like what we usually conclude so even so i mean we took manager before relievers and yeah basically i just have no idea what to do with rulers yeah i'm waiting for some of you guys to to thin the the herd a little bit yeah all right who's all right uh so in the spirit of that uh for my next pick because the way you decoupled offense from base running means i don't have to worry about jorge mateo getting on base before letting

him run so I'm gonna pick the the Orioles base running okay good pick yeah all right yeah I kind of like that although to be fair if he doesn't get on base and thus doesn't accrue any base running statistics like I don't really know like what if he goes over the playoffs wait we weren't saying are we like actually making a statistical whatever no we're definitely not doing we're yeah we're like but like he doesn't rearrange so he's like kind of a pinch runner for the orioles well like obviously the base running of the like if i could just put billy hamilton on whatever roster he's on i'd count it yeah it's it's completely decoupled from how often you're

on base it's just like a but what if you don't play well you can in this theoretical world i guess like it's it's also like the orioles don't really have that many bad base runners i guess adley's got kind of bad numbers but he knows to stay i had orioles base running as the best base running in the playoffs like yeah without yeah mateo and like the the Rays have like a lot of their numbers have to do with Wander Franco and Randy Rose Raina will run into a bunch of outs like the Phillies have a bunch of elite base runners but also a bunch of guys that like the Benz could beat in a foot race so I think the Orioles are just they've got like a lot of speed up top and they're deep and they don't make a lot of mistakes so i'm trying to decide if that's like mean to the

phillies complimentary to me and ben both neither i guess like i mean all these guys are you kidding yeah and if you're no stretching are you no cardio too no i don't stretch before i do it but okay god all right who's up i think it's me and yes i'm gonna not pick hitting because you guys have all taken hitters which is great so i think i'm gonna take the rays relievers okay they were like not very good at the start of the year yeah and then the rays just decided to get rid of all those bad relievers and instead bring in a bunch of guys who strike everyone out uh mike petriello wrote about this i thought very well uh for mlb.com that basically

the rays just decided that they should have the best bullpen and so then they have so they got jake teakman and robert steven Perfect. I mean, can't fail. Sure. And like in the second half of the year, just kind of as you're building your playoff rotation, I mean, they're just crazy. And even better as you get like towards the last few months, they've been the best bullpen in baseball and like not in fake ways either, right? Like they just strike everyone out. Don't walk anyone. Have pretty good ERA.

Have great FIP. Yeah, I'm very happy taking them boy what do i want to do i really want robert stevenson's middle name to be lewis yeah i'm man i've wanted this so bad since he was in the draft yeah liberal arts club or for him to get on the pirates too like that yeah oh man plus like. Plus, like, you got all the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde stuff. Could be great. Missed opportunity. Did he write Treasure Island? Did he write Treasure Island?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, because there's a Treasure Island, like, a mile from the giant stadium. It'd work there, too. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, like, it would have been fun. But instead, his parents decided to be bummers.

So here we are. Okay, well, what do I want to do here? I'm going to maybe take Brewer's Room? No, I didn't say the unit, so it doesn't count. That was like a check swing. Did she go around? No, doesn't count. Angel Hernandez would have rung you up on that one for sure.

Doesn't count. Okay, no, here's what I'm going do i'm actually gonna take i'm gonna take the the everybody loves drafting with meg because she's just such a joy and she's so decisive you know that's one of the things everybody says about her is that she's just like the most decisive person in the draft. You're keeping track of whose turn it is, and yet you seem taken aback by the- No, I- It's your turn. I'm filled with doubt and a million tiny imposters. No, I'm going to be decisive.

I don't know if this is stupid, but here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to take the Blue Jays defense is what i'm gonna do it's a good one yeah i never know if you mean that ben i never know if you mean it or you're just like i have to make her feel better about herself well yeah i think i think the ship sailed on you being decisive that one sounded like the reaction to a family feud guest that gets that like has no chance of being on the board yeah the footage's defense was high on my my defense board yeah yeah i feel like we're past everything premium so yeah i'm taking that i know that like like having read your preview ben me i know that your assessment of boba shett's defense is the

same as mine but i think the rest of that unit is really solid. Kevin Kiermaier hasn't missed a step, and now I get to think about Buck Martinez saying, Kevin Kiermaier. They built an outfield out of guys who could all credibly play center field, so that's pretty nice. Kirk's a good defensive catcher. The throwing up ace runners thing seems like something he struggles with from time to time. But anyway, yeah, I'm taking the Blue Jays defense. That's what I'm doing. Okay. Yeah, I don't know if you noticed, but I specifically left out how good they were at throwing. I said they're great at blocking and receiving. Yeah. I was like, having watched them, I'm like, that seems like a thing that's not going the best all the time. Yeah.

So, yeah. Which could be important in the postseason, right? It could be. Usually more steals, but... I will say he got charged with a double error this past weekend, and I get it, but some of that wasn't his fault. Bobachette should know that sometimes you just got to eat it and keep the ball in the infield.

Stop trying to tag so fancy, especially when you're not a very good defender lately. Anyway. Okay, I get to go twice? Yes. All right. It's a snake draft like you said feel free to hem and haw as much as as much as you like this is our first ever effectively wild snake draft after it might be 11 plus years it might be and the people have been clamoring and like even more advanced kinds of drafts, like even more, like I think complex than Snake sometimes.

But all right. Like the Llewild auction draft. I feel like I've been in a Snake draft with you before. Was that? Maybe it was a Ring around LB show because we usually, we keep it simple here. But all right. I'm going to take my bullpen and I'm going to take the Dodgers bullpen. Ooh. Interesting.

Yeah. So the Dodgers bullpen has been the best if you just go by war over at least the last couple months, although that probably is partly a cumulative innings thing just because the Dodgers are out of starting pitchers or have been at various points, which I guess could continue to be the case in the postseason. So like, if we were drafting based on, I don't know, how important it is or something, then you might take them up higher. If we were actually trying to compile the best stats, then I could rack up innings by getting Dodgers relievers, because I don't know who's going to go deep in that rotation. I mean, you hope like Bobby Miller, I guess, but Kershaw's not going to go deep into games, I don't think. And you're trying to piece

together that rotation. No offense to Lance Lynn, obviously, but I think they've been good. obviously but i think they've they've been good you know like they've kind of pieced together a bullpen and they got a bunch of guys there and like i don't have to factor in dave roberts i don't think because i'm just i'm just choosing the bullpen here with whatever manager i end up choosing whose spoiler will probably not be dave roberts so i get that manager with the Dodgers bullpen. So Dodgers bullpen pitching decisions has been a source of some discontent in previous postseasons, but we're going to steer clear of that. I never really know what to do with bullpens because there are bullpens that project to be better than others, but the confidence that we have in like playoff bullpens is is pretty low right because like often it'll be a bullpen no one saw it'll be like the phillies bullpen last year you know like

night shift braves yeah right whatever bullpen just happens to pitch well for a month will look dominant because it's not really that many innings and so anyone can do it and then you also have the factor of like relievers who just showed up in the last week or two like orion kirkering or you know chris paddock came back and it's like huh oh yeah he looks really good this is interesting yeah who knows so there's always like the possibility of a francisco rodriguez type playoff, I'm going to take the Dodgers here. And I guess I will take my defense too. I guess I'll take the Diamondbacks defense.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Give me El Marino. That's how the P.A. answer sounds. Outfield full of fast guys. That's another one of my guys. I think I just have about half the players in baseball I think of of fast guys. That's another one of my guys. I think I just have about half the players in baseball I think of as my guys.

It's an easier way to always think someone's doing well. You think Marino's one of your dudes? Yeah. I don't really have a great reason for it, but I like him. He's fun. He's fun to watch. He's done a great job this year. It's a tall task.

It's been a tall order. That's how that expression goes and he's handled that stuff really well. Well, I'm going to keep the D-backs train going, I'm going to take D-backs base running. And I know that a lot of their base running value comes down to Corbin Carroll being an 80 runner and a tremendous base stealer, but I think that they have guys who can comport themselves well from that perspective beyond him, like Perdomo and McCarthy and Alec Thomas, and then they do have their slow guys, like Walker and Marino, speaking of, and Tommy Pham's not really what he was on the base pass,

but Jordan Lawler, who hasn't obviously gotten enough playing time to really accumulate much of anything, is also a reasonable base runner. I don't know how much he'll play in the postseason, but he's there. So I'm taking them. Look how decisive I was. Look how certain. Well, yeah, because it's a Corbin Carroll-related thing. Yeah, I mean, and it's, yeah, I feel certain about that.

I'll jump on that. Even the slow guys, like Walker's 11 for 11 in stolen bases this year. So like just having the slow guys not make stupid outs gets you a long way here. Yeah, they tend to do well when it comes to that. I don't know that this is true. Like I don't actually think he's the fastest player in baseball because, you know, based on measurements thereof, he's not. But when he's running, I think Alec Thomas is the fastest player in baseball because you know based on measurements thereof he's not but when he's running i think alec thomas is the fastest player in baseball he he looks he's got like tom cruise

like energy where it's like oh my god that guy's going so fast and like carol kind of falls into that camp too or it's like they look like they're moving fast you know sometimes you can't tell quite how quickly they're going but sometimes you watch a guy and and excuse me i'm going to do a swear you go that guy's fast and like i i find myself saying that about the d backs a fair amount so i agree decisive well this will be a great opportunity to talk about base running because i'm actually going to take the raise base running i know michael thinks that they're bad yeah i was i don't think they're bad i'll take them next yeah yeah it's worth pointing out that uh wander franco not on the raise, perhaps for quite a while, he was worth 0.1 base running runs this year.

So I don't think they're actually doomed to be a bad base running team without him. Josh Lowe, it took me a second there. I had to make sure I got that right. And Taylor Walls are both really good base runners. Rosa Reyna is a positive base runner this year uh michael i'll have you know someone pointed out to me that bigger bases might be helpful because he always ends up in these just awful situations where he's six feet away from the base and playing tag with someone but when the base is you know twice as big or whatever now it's a pizza box

out there he gets back more often yeah they're just full of really fast guys like the diamondbacks like the slavish basave the all brujan i don't even know if basave will be on the postseason roster brujan probably not they're both burners they just have like brandon lau is a good base runner somehow luke rayleigh has good base running numbers and he might be back i don't know like they just are full of good base runners. So I will take them. I remember they made a ton of outs on the bases last year. Oh yeah. They led the majors in outs on the bases last year. They're actually third in the majors this year in outs on the bases,

but not as many as, as last year, I guess. And they just advanced so much. Right. They're pushing the envelope a lot, which is weird for good offense, but yeah. Okay just advanced so much. Right. They're pushing the envelope a lot, which is weird for good offense. Yeah.

Okay. That's a good pick. I don't know what I'm going to do with my base running, but I got to figure that out. All right. Oh, it's me again. Oh, boy. See? Okay.

So for defense, I'm coming down to two teams where I like a lot of the individual components. And there's one thing where I'm like, can we just like put a tarp over that guy? And I'm going to pick the Rangers because. Yeah. Yeah. I think Jonah Heim alone is makes that team a good defense. And we can just try not to look at Corey Seager too much. Yeah.

They were the only defense left on my board. I only had four on there. Another team with both corner outfielders can credibly play center field too. I would say semi-credibly, but yeah. Semi-credibly, sure. Yeah. They're not going to kill you out there if you had to do it.

And then for relief pitching, the Astros relievers, there's a little bit of like, are you getting the same Frambois Verlander thing with the starting rotation? I think I'm going to go with the Brewers. Yeah. Yeah. This was my almost pick. This was my almost.

Devin Williams, Abner Uribe, I think that their back end's so good. I considered the Phillies, but one didn't want to look like a homer. And two, I think Craig Kimbrell is going to pitch a lot and he makes me nervous. And as much as I like Alvarado and Kirk Green, I think Chris Sanchez is going to be is hugely underrated is going to be really important in like the middle innings. Like if they keep giving one run leads to a guy who if he walks the lead off man the whole thing comes apart like that gives me the heebie jeebies a little bit yeah yeah right i would have considered phillies or blue jays but i think i would have gone with brewers too so we've now drafted almost everything about the brewers we

we didn't draft their offense, obviously. I was thinking I had this exact same thought when I was putting together my board. Yeah. Their offense is better than it was before the deadline. The additions they made did help. Their OPP has been better. You get Freilich there and you get Canna there.

It's a longer lineup. Santana, right? It's deeper. They added three guys who wouldn't play for any of the other teams and it made their offense a lot better. It's a little bit worrisome. But we took their defense first. We took the

starting rotation first. We took the manager first and now we've taken the relievers it's like if you were inclined to do the sort of you know what pitching and defense wins in the postseason kind of nonsense then they would be first off your board i mean they've they've i guess have had this reputation for a while right because they've had this like pitching oriented don't hit so well kind of team for years now and every year it's like you don't want to face the brewers rotation and bullpen in october and then they score zero runs it's like well in that case

so i got burned because a couple years ago i did a whole thing about how unhittable unhittable the the brewers pitching staff was like right right on the verge of the postseason. I picked them to win the World Series. I think Zach Cram picked them too. And they ended up getting shut out twice and scoring like four runs in the entire division series. And I'm just never going to trust them again. Like we have six categories.

They were the number one team on my board in four of them. And I don't think I have them getting out of the first round in our predictions. Yeah. Like, I don't know. Hitting's a lot of the game yeah it's huge it's the most important thing i cajoled my way to the number one pick because it's the most important thing yeah do you know this um this like behavioral economic study where if you ask to cut in line i'm sure i don't and then when people if you ask to cut in line and when people ask you why you say, because I need to,

they're very likely to let you. Yeah. Like you don't even have to give a reason. Just, just saying that you need it. Like almost always works. That seems like what happened here. Yeah.

So you may not have known that study, but you were living it out. Yeah. All right. So I'm eye up again. Yeah. So no one else can take hitting. And so I could just have free reign and pick hitting with

my last pick but just to make a point i'm not going to i'm gonna leave manager till my last pick and you guys go nuts with managers ben and meg i don't care i'm gonna take the dodgers offense a true saber head it's true i will take the dodgers hitting yeah they were my second offense but close i mean i had everyone who we actually picked in a big tier, but except for the Braves, I had them number one with a bullet. We'll have taken them first by a mile. Good, good work, Batman.

But yeah, I like the Dodgers offense. I like Mookie Betts. I like Freddie Freeman. I generally am in favor of biasing myself a little bit towards very good players when we're looking at the translation from regular season offenses to post-season offenses, just because like less rest days. Mookie Betts is not getting any off days neither is Freddie Freeman neither is Ronald Acuna blah blah blah and so yeah the Dodgers have a lot of

stars they also have a good ability to kind of make up the the bad spots in the lineup with platoons and so yeah I'm very happy to get them I would have been very happy to get them next round too but yeah they're awesome. They're good and they're fun. Everyone's got an offense now, right? Yeah, I think Bauman needs a rotation. We didn't draft the Twins offense

and we didn't draft the Rays offense. Or the Jays or the O's. Or the Phillies. Rays would have gone on the board if Brandon Lau wasn't hurt and they've got a couple holes. Rays are in the same tier for me, at the bottom of it, but with the Rangers. Yeah, Twins offense has been really good. Really good recently, yeah. worked in guys you know who've come up and have been good like Julian and

I guess you have the and Walner too gets on base at 10 but there's the uncertainty about Royce Lewis and the uncertainty about Correa and the uncertainty about Buxton there's no uncertainty about Buxton well yeah I guess

it's such a bummer yeah right yeah I guess there are enough question marks there but I would have been tempted to if I had to take two offenses. Yeah. I feel like Buxton's season, like how does one even measure these sorts of things? But like, you know, I feel like there are a number of injuries and underperformances that we can all think of as like, it's a bummer that sees that guy's season is that way why aren't we talking more about how much it sucks that this is what byron buxton is now because this because i got sick of doing that in 2018 yeah but like this feels i don't know this feels more permanent i mean it's way worse like he can't even play the field and he's still getting hurt definitely way worse but i think it's just so sad no one wants to talk about it's so it's so sad i'm not just buying time i i really find it very very sad

i need a bullpen don't i so here's the thing bauman you made you made the the sane choice to like avoid a bullpen that is going to inspire some like agita, right? Because like who needs that? It's life's hard enough. But I'm sitting here faced with like a choice between a couple of my maybe less ideal options. And I'm going to lean into like the potential for upside, but also the potential to go, oh, no, really profoundly. And that's a bullpen that involves like Jordan Hicks and Genesis Cabrera. So I'm going to take the Blue Jays. I no, really profoundly. And that's a bullpen that involves, like, Jordan Hicks and Genesis Cabrera.

So I'm going to take the Blue Jays. I know, I know, I know. But, like, here's the thing. I'm doing it. I know that Jordan Romano has been, like, not that bad lately. But he is capable of being, like, really excellent. Like, Chad Green's been pretty good since he came back. You know, I think Eric Swanson is nice,

and the Blue Jays, unlike the Mariners, seem to remember they have him in their bullpen and are actually having him throw innings. And, like, sometimes, sometimes the, like, Hicks and Capre are, like, wah, and amazing, and sometimes they're, like, ah, and then the Blue Jays lose the game. But I'm doing it because I, I just,

I'm not enamored with that Orioles bullpen as much anymore. Even though Cano's still been good and they have some interesting guys and Fujinami's been better for them than he was with the A's, which isn't hard. Jack Flaherty's in the bullpen now. They really didn't do very much. I like D.L. Hall. I like D.L. Hall. I do like D.L. Hall, but I'm drafting Heartburn, and so I'm taking the Blue Jays. The Phillies are offended that you call

the Blue Jays Heartburn. Yeah, but like... I don't think the Phillies are as stressful as the Blue Jays. I agree. And I know I just passed on them, but it's like one guy is stressful. It just happens to be the guy who pitches the most stressful games. Do you think that Romano and Hicks are like uniquely

stressful as yeah they are relievers they really like there's lots of very bad relievers who are stressful because they're bad but for guys who are actually good i think those two are top of the list yeah let's go i can't feel sad anymore because the marin go yeah okay so i take my last two categories here you are confused every single time it is spectacular i've completely outsourced understanding why you guys don't do snake tracks All right. I need base running and I need manager. For base running, well, my top three base running teams are off the board, I think, already. So I'm going to go with Atlanta.

I think Atlanta is the best remaining base running team. I think at least like since the All-Star break, they have the second highest base running runs total in the playoff field after the Orioles. Obviously I get Acuna, which is just fun. So there's that. And they don't steal that many bases aside from Acuna, but they're fairly efficient, smart base runners, I think, on the whole. And I've already missed out on the Orioles and the Diamondbacks and who else? I forget. Rays. The Rays, right. So I think the Braves are probably the best I could do at this point. Is there anyone else on your boards that i should have taken here no i think the braves are underrated no four teams that went or the four teams that were on the top

of my board so excellent dodgers are my 15 okay all right so my last pick i've got to take a manager i guess i will go with kevin cash i like it okay i'm standing by him i like your ambiguity because yeah you see who knows i think that's the correct view on which manager to take there is a manager remaining who has won a lot of world Series, so I did consider that. But no, I'm going to go with Kevin Cash. I'm not going to hold the Blake Snell decision against him. I was okay with the Blake Snell decision. Maybe not with who he brought in. I don't know.

We don't have to talk about the Blake Snell decision again. But yeah, Kevin Cash, he's been doing it for a long time. He seems like he knows what he's doing. I don't know if this is an off-the-board decision for a manager. And certainly this is being informed in no small part by how he kind of dealt with different pieces of the bullpen when the Braves won the World Series. But I'm actually going to take Brian Snicker. I was going to say, who could you be picking? I think, so like, look,

maybe this is portraying a bias that I have about, you know, guys his age and what they might manage their teams like. But like, I was very pleasantly surprised by the dexterity that he showed in that World Series. And, you know, he knows when to hold him and when to fold him. And I know that he's going to have to deal with their, how the starting pitching and the bullpen sort of interplay with one another, given their injuries.

But I don't know. I have a lot of, a weird amount of confidence in him, maybe. I don't know if it's weird. I have confidence in him. And so, yeah, I'm going with Snit. of weird amount of confidence in him maybe i don't know if it's weird i i have confidence in him and um so yeah i'm going with snit i think he's awesome at like deciding when the game is lost and being like he's the bad guy yes that's a underrated skill just feel like he doesn't get enough credit for like he's now won six division titles in a row like that's ridiculous in in a

division that's been pretty tough yeah And like they've won 100. And obviously a lot of that is roster construction. But like there was he was like the least sexy manager hire imaginable. And like a first time manager who was like, I think he was he was 60 or 61 when he got his first big league gig. Inverse game capital. And I don't like I don't know what evidence there is that he isn't an elite manager like i don't know what he's done that you can really point out and say like he does this badly yeah and like i remember now granted i think ron washington deserves a large amount of credit

for this and obviously the shifting stuff doesn't matter as much but like in their in the midst of their run they adopted some some meaningful changes in how they were shifting defensively and this is in their world series run i should say and like the way that they got buy-in amongst their players suggested a close collaboration between the front office and the the coaching staff that i think is sometimes not to be taken for granted so yeah i don't know i think i think smith's a good manager man yeah i think that's a good pick yeah and so decisive again it might add like half a run's worth of value to a team across the playoffs which is hey more than not doing that it's not nothing yeah yeah that that half a run could be crucial.

It might be a make or break decision. All right. So I will take Brandon Hyde. Oh. I mean, I don't know. Just as like a protest pick or just like, just a who knows? How do you measure this?

Like, it seems like he's pretty good at keeping his team loose. You know, they have fun. They have the fun dugout celebrations. I're all like 23 which is probably part of it but how often do we think they clean that thing the the the bong the home run bong i know they don't want to call it uh the bong but what do they actually call it i don't know that's what it is they they call it the bong, but... Wait, what do they actually call it? I don't know. That's what it is, right? They call it something else because I think they, despite Major League Baseball having an official CBD partner, think that it's going to get them yelled at, but...

The Homer hose. Yeah, they call it a Homer hose. Instead of the dong bong, which... Instead of the dong bong, which is what it should be. That's like, come on. That's right itself. Yeah. Yeah, but I don't...

Like, is there any evidence that he's not a good manager? Like, he seems to make good bullpen decisions, aided by a front office that, like, is helping him make good bullpen decisions. Doesn't seem like anything's going particularly wrong. I don't think there's a lot of managers I wouldn't want to take here, but, like, I'd be pretty happy with him managing the team. He's never done it in October. Well, so, I think that's a relevant point to bring up. Like, I like Brandon Hyde just fine. I like Rocco Baldelli.

Like, there aren't – the managers who really take away from the team don't make it to this point generally. Except – And so, like, almost everybody here is good. I just want to point out that Bruce Bochy and Dave Roberts have four World Series and seven pennants between the two of them, and both of them have been... Famously, Dave Roberts never makes any objectionable postseason decisions. I consider taking him, but I kind of would only have taken him to

troll Craig Goldstein. Speaking of Craig, the Dodgers relievers were not on the board, and I was wondering if I underrate... I looked at that bullpen and was like, I like all these components. Right. But they suck.

As Craig says, they suck. He's the maddest, reddest, nudest person online whenever the Dodgers have a reliever in. So clearly they must be bad. I even considered taking Dusty. Yeah. I wouldn't take Dusty. Like I love Dusty. It's really the Martin Maldonado thing.

I thought he's a pretty steady bullpen manager, but I don't know. I think that bullpen was so good last year, there was no wrong decision to make. Yeah, I think that's right. I don't know how many decisions Dave Roberts will have to make this year. If his problem in the past has been leaving starters in too long, I don't know if even he could make that decision with these starters. starters in too long. I don't know if even he could make that decision with these starters. But yeah, I think the lack of playoff experience is actually relevant, maybe more relevant for a manager than for players, because players pretty much have to do the same thing that they do all season, whereas the manager actually has to manage differently in the postseason. I have no reason to

think that Brandon Hyde won't flip that switch, but we just haven't seen him do it right where you have to manage with some, some aggressiveness and some urgency and have quicker hooks maybe than you would typically. I mean, he's got a good bullpen too, which I would have drafted maybe if Batista weren't hurt, but if they hadn't sent big Mike down that too, I might've taken them like first if Batista was still there. Yeah. sent Big Mike down. That too. I might have taken them first if

Baptista was still there. Yeah, but he's not. Alright. I just have to pick a starting rotation now. I'm gonna pick Trana. They were sort of in that second tier. I think they've got a good combination of depth and also

a guy in Kevin Gossman who can go out and win you a game that's that was my like i don't know if the the twins have that guy maybe pablo lopez is that guy we will see but yeah i think at this point i was just waiting for somebody else to make the decision of like twins phillies astros whatever for me and uh ben talked me out of taking the astros so here we are do you think the i was unsure between twins and jays who to give quote unquote the edge in the in their series i think that the galsman game the jays will have the edge the sunny gray against i don't know whoever game um the twins will have the edge and then the third starter game you know

Joe Ryan against whichever of Bassett or Berrios didn't go in game two it'll be a toss-up but I don't know like I think those are both very good rotations who everyone will immediately ignore because one of them will lose in the wild card series and they're like those guys sucked yep but they both seem like really good to me. Who's your manager, Mike? Council. Oh, right. Yeah, of course. Yeah. So none of us took Boach.

That's what I just said, Ben. How are we not doing that? I mean, I thought about doing it and then I didn't, but I don't know. I don't know. Do you think he's going to have Madison Bumgarner to bring in for 17 innings of relief? You think that's all that he... No, not at all. That team took such a huge leap forward with bringing him in this season.

Just like, this is... Oh, I totally agree. I just don't think, like, the fact that he's won previous World Series is the particularly important part. I think the fact that he's a good manager is, but I think a lot of these guys are. Like, the O's took a big leap forward this year, too.

But Brandon Hyde isn't the thing that changed from last year to this year that's true I don't know Bochy is I mean he's not the only thing that changed about the Rangers either I'm just going by he's won a lot of World Series is with teams that weren't actually that great for the and also he did it by

doing creative stuff with his pitching staff and also World Series ises guy? You're not just a World Series? It's not World Series? I've talked about this before. I don't like it because there's just no way to differentiate between series singular and plural

when you're saying it other than sort of emphasizing it. Stupid language. It's bad. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I thought about Rocco. I thought about Tori Lavello. I mean, I thought about Rocco. I thought about Tori Lavello. I mean, I thought-

Okay, can I offer a Tori take? Rob Thompson had a pretty good postseason last year, I thought. He did. Can I offer a Tori take? Yeah. I don't know. I don't know about from a- In terms of-

There have been times, you guys, when I've been watching those Arizona Diamondbacks, and sometimes his decisions have been less the bullpen stuff, because I think that he just hasn't had very good options, candidly. Like, for a lot of the year, it's just been like, who's not dead? You know? There's been, like, how much Miguel Castro can you tolerate as much as you have to? Same with Dochi and the Rangers, right?

He hasn't had any good options there. But, like, sometimes I feel like he doesn't maximize platoon advantages in the way he could. He makes weird decisions with his substitutions. He sometimes gets a little too cute in terms of when he brings in pinch hitters. I don't know. It's not unambiguously great in a way that I would feel like amongst a field that offers many good options he wouldn't have been top of mind for me

I have to add something now I might have taken Bochy if I hadn't watched that Mariners Rangers series when he brought in Aroldis Chapman in the game where Aroldis Chapman basically walked the bases later without making any outs and you could look at Aroldis Chapman basically walked the bases later without making any outs.

And you could look at Aroldis Chapman and he was just like, I don't have it. He couldn't locate the ball. He was confused. He looked dazed on the mound. And the Mariners had just beaten him up. And then he was like, I don't know. I guess Jonathan Hernandez. Just who's left in the bullpen?

Yeah, they almost got out. They almost did, but it was like... they and they ultimately did but not that day right the thing about situations like that is like you can't just it takes time to undo that move yeah so it's true but it's just a matter it's sort of like the daniel barton the wbc thing like if you realize your relief ace just just can find the zone, then you have to live with it long enough, not only to get the three batter minimum out of the way, but to get another guy up to fix it. I don't know. I just remembered him

in the WBC. Sad. If any of us had drafted Bochy, we would have gotten Bochy with the bullpen that we drafted, so he would not have had to deal with the Rangers bullpen. I don't know. This is maybe the biggest snub. We're going to get crushed for not taking Bruce Bochy, proven playoff manager. But who knows?

Anyway, I think, am I right in saying that the only team that we didn't draft anything from is the Miami Marlins? I think we took something from everyone else, right? I think that you're right. I think that you're right. Did anyone consider a Marlins component anywhere? Yeah, I thought about taking Skip Schumacher because

I love when he ran out on the field and grabbed the tarp. Hilarious. Okay. I said this in my preview i think like even with the injuries to perez and alcontra i i think that's still a pretty decent rotation for a short series but like it's still a level below particularly when you're getting into guys three and four level below the the teams that we picked yeah i have i feel like they have the worst number one starter going in the playoffs, probably.

The O's do. That's not fair. The O's do. Yeah, I was going to say. But they have the second worst number one starter going. I'm not sure they have an above median number two starter. It's just rough. I mean, obviously they would if they had the guys that are supposed to be on the team.

Right. But they don't now. the guys that are supposed to be on the team right but yeah yeah they don't now if they were able to go al contra lazardo and yuri in some order like watch out but they're not able to do yeah i was right i wrote down like the top fours for all the teams and i had a lot of question marks to be honest like like i don't know who the diamondbacks fourth starter is i don't know who the number three starter is for half the teams of the playoffs yeah but the marlins i was just like man like these is edward cabrera good yeah he's their number two starter right well braxton garrett's starting game two that's fair but like like brandon fought starting game one and he's not the d-backs number one

starter no he's not he's um he's a he's often a nervous looking boy yeah i have such developed opinions about the d-backs it's like really weird i mean it's not weird it's totally understandable but like if you'd asked me from a couple of years ago are you gonna have developed opinions about the d-backs like this i'd be like maybe not he gets very red he's like a um a really rosy-faced starter once he gets going and it when things unravel on him makes him look like he's like a um a really rosy faced starter once he gets going and it when things unravel on him makes him look like he's panicked in a way that probably doesn't mean anything but does make you feel nervous sort of like watching pete fairbanks it's really good but like most nervous fairbanks in world series game seven do you think that pete fairbanks should switch faces with

jordan hicks jordan hicks does not really look nervous, I don't think. He doesn't look nervous when he should. That's what I mean. Yeah, it's really remarkable. Fairbanks is pretty steady, except for Pete Fairbanks. Right. You know who'd figure out a way to do the face swapping surgery? Bruce Bochy.

That's right. That's right. Well, we ignored the Marlins. That means I assume that they will win the World Series again, as they usually do when they make the playoffs. We'll see. Do we want to just call out our teams here to remind everyone?

I have it for everybody. Shall I run them down? Sure. Go ahead. Bauman, I have you with the Braves offense, the Rangers defense, the Blue Jays starting pitching, the Brewers relievers, the Orioles base running, and the Brewers manager. Yes. Ben Clemens, I have you with the Dodgers offense, the Brewers defense, the Twins starters, the

Rays relievers, the Rays base runners, and the Orioles manager. Yeah. I have myself with the Rangers offense. Yeah, okay. Blue Jays defense, Brewer starters, Blue Jays relievers, D-backs, base runners, and Braves manager. And Ben Lindberg, I have you with the Astros offense,

the D-backs defense, the Phillies starters, the Dodgers relievers, the Braves base runners, and the race manager. Correct. Great. All right. May the best Frankenstein team win. And we'll have to have you guys back on sometime to review our preseason predictions, maybe

over the off season at the end of the year, whenever they're finished or mostly finished. We'll have to recap how that went. Not well. I think I'm winning. I think you are. I think you are. I'm almost certainly in last place. I'm excited to do that draft again next year.

I feel like I'm really going to have a nice time. We all figured out how to do it. We should do it as a snake draft so that we can fuse Ben. I was downright surprised by how likely people think things are. Yeah, me too. So I feel like I need to change up my strategy a little bit. I picked stuff that I thought was like five percenters and people were like, I don't know, 40.

People will put 80%, like the group think put 80% likelihood on everything. I thought I was picking like six things that were going to get upper 90s points if they came true, including the animal dying on the field. these points if they came true including the animal dying on the field and they just it was like 81 19 on everything i predicted it was very frustrating all right save it for the recap pod we'll we'll talk to you guys soon enjoy the playoffs have a good one that'll do it for today thanks as always for listening and thanks to those of you who support the podcast on Patreon,

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You can follow Effectively Wild on Twitter at EWPod, and you can find the Effectively Wild subreddit at r slash Effectively Wild. Thanks to Dylan Higgins once again for his editing and production assistance filling in for Shane McKeon. Always happy to have a Dylan reunion. Enjoy all the wild card action, and we will be back to discuss it and preview the Division series. Series later this week. Talk to you then.