Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 2223: Oakland’s Last (Home)stand

Episode Date: September 26, 2024

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about MLB’s oddly extended YouTube highlight videos, the league’s handling of a crucial, rained-out Mets/Brave series, the zombie runner rearing its ugly head in games with playoff implications, teams that are well-positioned for an especially free-for-all October, Emmanuel Clase’s Cy case, the value of top position players vs. top […]

If baseball were different, how different would it be? And if this thought haunts your dreams, well stick around and see What Ben and Meg have to say philosophically And pedantically, it's effectively wild Effectively wild. Effectively wild. Hello and welcome to episode 22, 23 of Effectively Wild, a baseball podcast from FanGraphs presented by our Patreon supporters. I am Ben Lindberg of The Ringer, joined by Meg Rowley of FanGraphs. Hello Meg.

Hello. Some of our listeners may not know that we record monthly bonus episodes for many of our Patreon supporters and we are up to 34 such episodes, 35. Wait, are we really? We've done 34 of those things, 35. When we record the next one this weekend. This weekend.

Which you can access instantly. All of that back catalog, that vast archive immediately if you sign up for the second lowest tier of Patreon support. And by the way, you'll wanna sign up with the Playoff live streams coming up next month. I mentioned this not just to do a plug for the Patreon, but also because we often start those bonus episodes with some low stakes rants.

And usually those rants do not concern baseball. They can concern anything and everything. But I have a baseball specific low stakes rant to start this episode off for you. I have a complaint about MLB YouTube video editing or the lack thereof. Maybe it's not even editing so much as it is just where they choose to clip the highlights

because I have found that MLB highlights on the MLB official YouTube page are way longer than the actual highlight. And much of the time when I click on the highlight that I wanna see, it's like late in the video. The video is several minutes long. I just want to see one play and I cannot because you have to wait through

maybe multiple plate appearances, a whole inning to get to this thing. And I am mystified, I am befuddled by how they decide to do this. Now the impetus for this little rant was that I wanted to watch the Padres game ending triple play against the Dodgers on Tuesday to clinch a postseason appearance. And I go to the highlight, the Padres turn a triple play

to clinch a postseason birth. That's what the title of the YouTube video says with a lot of caps and exclamation points. The runtime for this video is 12.09. 12 minutes and nine seconds. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Wait, wait, wait. Yeah, and look, far be it from me,

co-host of Effectively Wild, to complain about runtimes, but the point is- Wait, hold on, I'm sorry, put a pin in that, because yes, Ben, and look, I just want listeners to know, for those of you, look, I love our episodes. I think I say for every moment, I treasure them always. I forget them as soon as we're done recording them, but they are still dear to me. But I want the listeners to know that on occasion I will say, Ben, some of the episodes could

be shorter. I do say it. And so if you feel, you know, just like not every single one, but like, this one could be an hour and a half. It'd be fine. When we start talking, we get right into it. Now what we get into is generally nonsense and you know, who knows if any of it is worth anything, but we start talking about baseball usually right

away and that's what you expect to get when you put on a baseball podcast. When I click on a highlight to see a particular play, I expect to just see that play. That's really all I want to see. This highlight video, the only one available on the full YouTube account for MLB is the full inning. It's the whole inning that led up to the triple play. And in fairness, at the very end of this extremely long title, it does say in parentheses full inning,

which is hard even to see that depending on how you're viewing that title. But I would guess that the majority of people who click on this thing and want to see the triple A to end the game, just want to see the triple play, not everything that led up to the triple play in that inning. And this is not an isolated event. If I just click on some other recent videos, all rise number 56 on the season, three straight games with a homer for Aaron Judge, five minutes, eight seconds to see the home run for Aaron Judge. And he doesn't hit the home run until about two minutes in because it's the entire plate appearance that precedes the home run.

Even more egregiously maybe, another stolen base. Shohei Otani has 54 on the year and stolen bases in five straight games. Five minutes, 13 seconds for a single stolen base for Shohei Otani. He does not steal the base until four minutes and roughly 23 seconds into the video. So you just want to see the steal.

You have to see everything that leads up to that. His entire plate appearance, he has a long plate appearance. He finally gets on base and then someone else is hitting. And then finally he goes your four minutes in to see this thing. Like what percentage of people actually wanted to see every event that led up to that thing. And I don't know if it's like laziness is like we just, let's ship the whole inning, like we can't cut it any finer than that. Or if they think that people want to see all the past that's prologue to every single highlight here, but I'm incredibly confused by this.

And every time I click on a highlight, it's instantly like, well, now I guess I gotta browse and search through this thing and I gotta like fast forward and click around and see where the actual highlight is. There aren't timestamps in the description to the video or anything. Like here's the actual highlight that you clicked on. I just want answers. I just want to know how this became the house style for highlights.

So here's what I was prepared for, Ben. I was prepared for your, your grape here to be about having to like watch an ad before a 20 second highlight or something like that. Well, that happens too, but- That happens too. And that's what I, but that, that was what I expected this to be about. And I was going to say, well, yeah, but like everybody hates that. But your issue is having to watch more compelling baseball to get to a specific bit of compelling baseball that you were promised and felt like you were going to get to right away. Is that right?

Am I, am I getting this right? Yeah. Maybe still compelling, but less compelling than the thing I clicked on to see. I didn't budget 12 minutes to watch the Padres game ending triple play. I thought that was going to be a 30 seconds job. To be fair, it wasn't advertised to you that way, was it? Wasn't it put as they clinch a wild card birth or they clinch a playoff birth? That wasn't the- No, the Padres turn a triple play to clinch a postseason birth.

Oh, okay, okay, yeah. Yeah, okay. You know what? I feel you, truth in advertising, you know? Or just less advertising or just less, I don't know. Less baseball, more baseball, more good baseball, more triple plays for sure. We definitely want more of those.

Now that you bring up ads, I wonder if that has something to do with it, whether the longer videos are easier to monetize. That would be very on brand for MLB these days. Just make something slightly less convenient so that they can add a mid roll or whatever. I didn't actually watch the whole 12 minute triple play video, so I don't know if that's the case. But if Rob Manfred's MLB could ring some extra dollars out of that content at spectator's expense,

you know it will. For archival purposes, I guess it's good, because we know that in a few years, all of these games will self-destruct from MLB TV. So at least parts of them will be in these extra long highlight videos. I just want a Goldilocks length. Get in, get the good stuff, get out.

I'm fine with some banter, you know, let's warm up to the topic. That's what we do here to the extent that we even have a topic. It's kind of just, we're here to banter basically or renter today. That's what we're here for. It would be so amazing, Ben, if every time someone went to watch a highlight on mlb.com, there was just like two random minutes of effectively while at the beginning of the clip. And we could suggest some bangers because I think we've had

some moments that we look back on and say, you know, that one, I feel good about that one. I'm going to tweet that one out. I feel like I sounded funny and or smart on that one. CB Yeah. To watch the triple play, you have to pay the podcast toll. You have to listen to a stat blast about Nate Colbert's all-time Padres, Home Run record, and Manny Machado breaking it before you can get to this highlight. Now, again, to be fair, I will acknowledge that they do have YouTube shorts, which as the name suggests are very short. And so they do have versions of the triple play video that are like 15 or 18 seconds.

And just so the triple play on the YouTube shorts tab. The problem is though, that those are in portrait mode. They are for phones. And maybe I'm an old complaining about this that I'm often watching highlights on a desktop or people watch YouTube on TV all the time. That's a common way to watch YouTube. So I hate also to be restricted to the portrait layout to the 4.3 when I have the full possibilities of 16.9 available to me. And so I'm

seeing this little sliver of the play and that's the best I can do. I can either have 15 seconds in portrait mode or I can have 12 minutes in landscape. And I just wonder what the thinking is. It's like, well, you can't fully appreciate the triple play unless you understand how the bases became loaded in the first place. Everything that led up to this, we're setting the scene, it's the suspense, it's the drama. If you just skip to the end and cut to the chase, well, that's not exciting at all. But I don't think that that is how most people consume highlights. I think they just want to see that particular play, not everything that led up to that play. It's like the YouTube highlight clipper for MLB is like Kamala Harris' mother. Like you exist in the context of all in which you live and what came before you. You think the highlights just fell out of a coconut tree? It's like every single

highlight on the MLB YouTube channel should just be that team's entire season, I think. It should be like dozens of hours long, just so you really get a sense of everything that led up to that highlight. Don't just give me five minutes or 12 minutes. I want to see all 162 games. Yeah. And I can skip ahead maybe because how could I understand this triple play if I don't see everything that led up to that? And frankly, years, I mean, the Dodgers, Padres rivalry, the way the Padres have

been frustrated by the Dodgers in recent years, that they've been ascendant, that things haven't worked out for them. There's so much context you have to have to appreciate this single inning, ending, game inning, triple play, that it would be irresponsible to just show me that 18 seconds in landscape mode. So maybe I should be thanking MLB here for giving us what we actually need to appreciate. They're not taking any shortcuts. They're not cutting any corners. Someone somewhere just lost an effectively wild prop bet about which of us was going to be the first to like name drop and make a Kamala reference. I like to keep you on your toes suckers. Yeah, look, I get it Ben. I agree with you. I think an a la carte option

that you can go to film room and just get individual plays, you know. Yes, and then you will certainly have to watch some ads before you watch that short video. Yeah, you do have to watch an ad. At least the ad to video ratio is better. There might be multiple ads in the middle of that, but at least, you know, I'm getting something for the time I'm putting in watching the ad. I want you to know that like a solution exists for you.

If you are willing to subject yourself to a really candidly kind of rancid ad to highlight ratio. If you are willing to do that, it's there for you. I just don't remember this always being the case. This changed at some point. It used to be that I would click on highlight and I would just see that highlight as advertised. And now there's this just lengthy prelude that has been going on for some time. And every time I look at how long a video is like, this is not what I bargained for. So I'm curious about the thought process. That's all I am lodging an objection, but also I'm just curious.

I have a lot of intellectual curiosity. I'm amazed by the world around me. I am constantly in a state of wonder. And this is one of those things that has engendered that feeling in me. Yeah, you're also, I mean, you're sort of launching an investigation. Yeah, I don't know that I will be reporting on this, but you never know when we'll get a tip, the

Effectively Wild tip line. Our signals, our telegrams are open. Not really, but you can always email us and we'll keep it confidential. To be clear, we are not on telegram. I hear it's, that's a bad spot. Can I launch a low stakes rant based on a PR email I just got from Major League Baseball? Tonight and tomorrow's Mets Braves games, postpone traditional doublehead. Okay, look, here's it, Ben.

We knew that this was coming, right? This storm has been forecast, right? Yes, it's been brewing. It's been brewing. It's been brewing. It's been brewing. It's been spinning. And look, there's always a danger when one complains about things like this, that one is losing the, missing the forest for the trees, right? And obviously the most important part of this is like, this seems like it's going to be a pretty nasty storm and it might be really damaging

to people and their things. And so I want to make clear that I am aware of where the postponement of these games and its subsequent ripple effects through the postseason picture are in the grand scheme. I have perspective on that. I'm not confused about what's important here and what is important is people's safety and what is not important is my ability to put together a staff prediction post before Tuesday morning. I get it.

I'm not confused. I will say the following, which is it feels like given the fact that we have at this stage, quite sophisticated forecasting technology as it pertains to storms like this, that this was a problem that could have been anticipated and perhaps planned around. And I know that moving games is, it takes work and it's not as simple as someone going, ah, snap a finger. And then all of a sudden these guys are like playing, I don't know, Beckenqueens?

They've done neutral sites before in cases like this, and you could have tried to squeeze in a doubleheader earlier. I did see some people anticipating this possibility days ago. People who were not paid to plan for these things. So you'd think that the powers that be would have taken this into account. And yeah, I guess you don't want to take away a true home game for the home team

and deprive your fans of a playoff atmosphere coming down to the wire here. Mets and Braves, these are big games. So of course you don't want to have to relocate those, but not ideal to have to have a double header for the day after the regular season was scheduled to end and the day before the postseason scheduled to start involving one or multiple teams that their hopes are hanging in the balance here. And this could decide which of those teams is actually going to play in the postseason.

I guess this also screws up our clean delineation between the September regular season. No, you know what? It doesn't because Monday's the 30th. So that's fortunate. We can still say October will be synonymous with the postseason. So that at least is preserved.

Yeah, speaking of other things that really don't matter to very many people at all, but really matter to me, just like so much. There should have been perhaps better planning around this and someone who works for the league and listens to this podcast, and I'm not thinking of a specific person, I'm just saying like the odds are non-trivial, is sitting there yelling at me right now being like, what? What?

You think it's so easy? I don't know why I'm giving you that voice, but that's the voice you have in my head. Tanner Iskra It's probably the same person who's cutting the 12 minute versions of highlight videos. That's one of their bailiwicks and the other is anticipating. This is like a fairly important thing. It's important to not only set the playoff field, but to set the teams up for the playoffs. And I would be mighty pissed if I were either of these clubs. And I think that the league tragically has missed the opportunity to do the funniest thing ever, which is to take this game.

They should have taken this very game, these very two games, if they're going to postpone them. No, don't do that. Don't be cowards. You know what you do instead, Ben? You know where you make them play? You say, you know who's on the road this weekend? The Philadelphia Phillies.

Go play at Citizens Bank. Let's go. That would be so funny Philadelphia Phillies. Go play at Citizens Bank. Let's go. That would be so funny. Do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it,

do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do What kind of atmosphere would there be? I wonder at that game. It would be spectacular. That would be inclement. There would be violence. That would be, yeah. There would be violence. I mean, like that part, yeah, that part wouldn't be spectacular to be clear. I'm not suggesting that it would be good, but I am suggesting that it would be funny.

And I think that there would be hot dogs thrown. I think that there would be just constant booing. They would boo the whole time. Yeah. It would be interesting to see which team Phillies fans would root for or less hard against. Where would their sympathies lie? Which team would they least less like to face if they're matching up with one of those clubs? Yeah. Yeah. Well, while we're airing our grievances, I have one final rant to conclude our trio of rants here. This one also has to do with deciding playoff spots and wild cards. I'm taking it back here.

This is a retro rant, a zombie runner rant. It's been quite a while since we've had one because that anchor, it's basically baked in at this point. I assume everyone knows my stance on the zombie runner and it hasn't changed, but every now and then that agita just bubbles to the surface again. And it happened here in the Royals Nationals game on Tuesday, I saw Joshian was up in arms about this too. The zombie runner decided a pretty crucial game, a pretty pivotal game between these two teams

that was scoreless until the 10th. And the Royals have had a lot of scoreless games lately. They have struggled offensively. They have scored five runs in their last six games, two runs in their last four games, one run in their last three games. And that one was a gift from Rob Manfred. It was the Zombie Runner. The Royals have had the worst offense of any team in September.

So they have really struggled to get on base and scratch across runs. Painfully, ironically, the Mariners have the best offense of any team in September, but we won't dwell on that at this moment because that's another matter entirely. But the Royals- My word to catch straight. That's another matter entirely, but the trails. My word to catch straight.

They have struggled and strained to scratch across any runs, to push any runners across the plate. And here they get this gift at this moment when they need it. And Bobby Witt Jr. hits a weak grounder to short where Nassim Nunez is playing because C.J. Abrams, as we covered last time, is demoted and Nunez double clutches and he throws the ball in the dirt and it gets away and the runner scores and the Royals kind of get a gift run from both Rob Manfred and the Nationals and they win this game one-nothing. Now I bear no ill will toward the Royals. The Royals are fun. I think it's exciting that the Royals. The Royals are fun. I think

it's exciting that the Royals have gone from being as bad as they were last year to being poised on the precipice of the playoffs and they went for it and they tried to invest in their roster and good for them. So I don't bear any grudge against the Royals, but we are on the verge of being free of the zombie runner once the postseason rolls around. And for that, I am grateful that we have at least retained some sense of the sanctity of October and have kept that environment zombie runner free. But here we have a game with playoff implications with a big significance for who will actually

be playing in the playoffs. And that was essentially decided by a zombie runner. I continue to think that the fact that we keep the postseason roped off from the zombie runner just reinforces the fact that everyone involved knows this is not legitimate baseball. This is not the way that baseball should be played and that meaningful games should be decided. I understand different considerations in the postseason and the regular season, but still, if you're conceding that, oh, we wouldn't actually want to decide the important games with this travesty, and yet we are content to do that all

season long, that gets my goat, but it gets my goat even more when we are essentially determining who will appear in those playoffs with a zombie runner that mercifully will not appear in those playoffs. You're not going to get any argument from me. It's a travesty. I think, look, there's a lot of stuff that determines how games go. And, you know, sometimes you get screwed over by the zombie runner and sometimes you get screwed over by hurricanes. And what do you do but try to win the game in front of you? But yeah, this is always the danger of us shortening stuff up in the sake of expediency. Someone's going to come away feeling like they didn't really get to control their own destiny in its totality.

And you could say, we'll simply score your own run based on the zombie runner and get on with your life. And I think that's a defensible argument, but it's like a defensible argument in defense of an indefensible thing. So at the end of the day, doesn't that make it a garbage argument? Yeah. I'm sure Royals fans are feeling fonder of the zombie runner right now. It's like, we can't score a run without this. Well, we'll take it. Everyone gets to play under the same conditions and we need that win. So thank you very much. It may be some time until we actually know what the playoff picture looks like

thanks to the hurricanes and MLB's planning conspiring against us. But we do know when those teams make the playoffs, how they will be projected to perform thanks to Dan Zemborski of FanGraphs, who produced and published his annual post on which teams are best set up for the playoffs. And he's done the research in the past that shows that there's really no secret sauce to winning in the playoffs. But what does matter is how good you are and what the talent level

of your roster as currently constituted is. And I just bring this up, maybe we can do more playoff preview next time and at least go over some strengths and weaknesses even if we still don't know exactly which teams we'll be playing. Oh my God. But sorry to cause you the more heartburn. So stupid. What a, what a, what a, ah. Hashtag managing editor problems, but also Mets and Braves fan problems because they're on the edge of their seats. They're on ten for hooks here.

Real baseball implications to this, not just my, you know. Yeah, and other teams too, they have to know where they're gonna go, who they're gonna play. Yeah, who are you gonna play? Where do you gotta go? What's your name?

Who am I? You know? The point is whoever gets in, my take on these playoffs heading into them is that there will be no upsets this season. There were upsets last year, there were upsets the year before, and there were people who were very upset about those upsets. And even though we could say, yes, it's a crap shoot, and this is how the baseball playoffs work, there was a sufficient disparity in the true talent of

those teams and the regular season records of those teams that people could feel miffed if the favorite lost. Even if people like us still said, everyone's in it and the worst playoff team can easily beat the best playoff team in small sample, et cetera, et cetera. Yes, I know. But also it's hard to watch a full season and see a team that just barely squeaks into the playoffs top a team that ran the table and that can cause a whole lot of consternation and hand-wringing and discourse about whether MLB needs to do something to change the playoff format, et cetera. I think we will be free from that this year. Famous last words, I know. But the thing is,

there aren't really any great teams this year, as we have discussed previously, and Dan's projected roster strengths support that. So he produced a couple of projections. One way he did it was just to look at, okay, take the current roster of that team. What would Zips project that team to do over the course of a regular season? So you're only taking into account who's on the team right now, but you're basically projecting a full regular season. Last year when he performed that same exercise, the gap between the best and the worst was the Braves at a projected roster strength of 594 winning percentage and the Miami Marlins way down at 460. So 134 points difference between the best and worst teams in projected full season winning percentage given the rosters that they entered the playoffs with.

This year, you have the Dodgers, even the decimated diminished Dodgers on top at 560 and those Royals at the bottom at 507. So you have 53 points. You have a lot less than half the disparity between the best and worst of last year. And that's somewhat mirrored to even when he does the more specific projections to take into account October usage patterns and the fact that you can ride relievers harder and you can use certain starters more and that favors some teams more than others. And even with that though, the disparity among these teams just not great. So of course when fans, when their team loses, they will be upset about that and they may complain.

But I don't know that there will be that much grounds for griping about the way the postseason is structured because really what team could you feel like, oh yeah, they can't be beaten. They're vulnerable right now. No, every team is very vulnerable. Yes. I mean, as we are sitting here, news is coming across the transom that like Grayson Rodriguez will not return in 2024. So like, you know, every team has, has some imperfections, sometimes a glaring one, a vulnerability that, you know, will their opponent be able to exploit? That's why we play the game spin, you know, that's why we're going to, we're going to see if the hurricane allows us to.

And look, I just want to stress again that like the most important thing here is like the safety and wellbeing of the people in the path of this hurricane. Like I don't want to sound like I'm trivializing that because that's like, this is a bad, it's very bad. Also. Yeah, I agree. I think that like all of these teams have a vulnerability. I mean, to underscore it, when I initially edited Dan's piece, I had a picture of happy celebratory Dodgers as the feature

image, right? Happy Dodgers everywhere, because they were the team that Dan's analysis concluded sort of is set to experience the greatest sort of postseason bump and how nice for them. And then they lost on a devastating triple play that put their division rival in the postseason and them only two games ahead of that rival. And I was like, I got to put a different team up here because that's going to look real weird in the morning when it runs. So yeah, all of that to say that like even, even the teams with some of the very best

guys are, are vulnerable and we could choose to grouse about that and say we aren't going to get like a dominating team that comes through and like lays waste to the field. But I think it has the potential for like fun, really fun series and contests. And it's all I really want in any given playoff series is to go in feeling like intellectually, this is often true. And a thing that I know when I think about it and I look at our, you know, playoff odds and I look at our series specific odds, but I want to go in feeling like it's around 50-50, you know, you don't want to feel like, you know, who's going to win. And I think that we're going to see a lot of that this year. We saw so much of that

last year because I was just like, my God, these Diamondbacks just keep winning until they stop. But I think it's good, unlike the hurricane, which is bad, bad, bad, bad. We can agree on that. Yeah. So even more of a crapshoot than usual and so obviously subject to randomness, I think this year that everyone will be hopefully prepared for that. I'm sure that won't be the case, but they should be. They should be forewarned and forearmed that really, really anything can happen this year. We say that every year, but- Yeah, no, but really. We really mean it. Yes.

Now we mean it. Nothing will surprise me this postseason, even by the standards of postseason surprises. So he does have, Dan has the Dodgers as the top team, the team that gets the biggest playoff boost, which I guess makes sense in a way, just because they're down to so few starters now, that like, yes, their playoff rotation is somewhat compromised, but also this is comparing how they could

get through a full season with their current rotation, which would be tough. As it is, you can get by with two or three guys, at least better than you can when you need a fourth and fifth starter all the time. So he has the Dodgers and the Yankees and the Orioles and the Astros with the bigger boosts and then at the bottom you have the Royals and the Guardians and the Mets and the Twins. Some of those teams will not even appear in the playoffs probably, but the Guardians being there, that makes me pivot to another topic, which is the performance of Emmanuel Classe.

And I wanted to ask what you think his Cy Young showing will be, because maybe that will be something of a referendum or at least a reflection of how we perceive relievers these days. Now you might think, well, the Guardians, they should get an October boost. And I guess they do from being able to rely on their excellent bullpen, but they have had to rely on that excellent bullpen

all season long, because they just do not have much of a rotation. And so that hurts them in these projections. It's funny, just in 2017, I remember talking about this then and it's still true, the Guardians, not yet named the Guardians at the time, had the best pitching staff ever by FanGraphs War. And that remains the case. That is not the case now, but they do still have a fantastic bullpen and that has kind of carried them all year. And FanGraphs has win probability added data going back to 1974 and the Guardians have the best team bullpen WPA on record at FanGraphs. And a big part of that, of course, is Klasay. And I would think that in some earlier era, Klasay might merit real serious Sai Young

consideration. Like he might win the thing back in the day when relievers could win the thing. And that will not happen now. And I think everyone's pretty much agreed that Terek Skupel's start on Tuesday probably sealed his Sai Young victory, a deserved victory, if that was even in doubt before that. But where might Klasay finish? I wonder, because you could make a case, you could make an old school stats based case for him and you could make a newer school stats based case for him. Obviously he has 46 saves, he's leading the American league.

He is I think trailing Ryan Helsley of the Cardinals by one save if he could overtake him. I think he would be the first pitcher since the save became an official stat in 1969 to lead the majors in saves in three consecutive seasons, although he blew a lot of saves last year. I think he actually led the league or maybe baseball with like 12 blown saves or something last year. Yeah, strange. He had a very strange season last year. It was very strange, Ben. Yeah, he was ultra elite in 2022. He was pretty shaky last year and he's ultra elite again this year. Ultra elite, not just elite. Even more. Ultra elite. Most unique. No. He has a 0.62 ERA as we speak.

And he's within striking distance, I guess, technically. Of course, Fernanda Rodney has the record for lowest ERA for, I don't know, qualified reliever or minimum 70 innings or whatever it is. And Dennis Eckersley is at.61. I think Klasay, he's right now at 72 and a third innings pitched with five earn runs. He'd have to get to 75 innings pitched without allowing another Ernie to surpass Rodney to lower the limbo bar. Wait, another Ernie? Yeah, I called it an Ernie. You called it an Ernie? Called it an Ernie. We're doing, you know, sometimes you're like, it's the midweek show,

but let's make it feel like the Friday show. 2200 plus episodes in, I got to keep mixing things up. An Ernie. I don't think I care for it, but I hate to say the reviews are in, they're not positive. Well, neither does Emmanuel Casse. That's why he hasn't allowed any this year. And so he'd have to pitch a two and two thirds innings without allowing another earned run. pitch two and two thirds innings without allowing another earned run. I will say in deference to your wishes over the guardians final four games to

lower that bar below Rodney, which probably won't happen because Cleveland is clinched a by already, but it's a fantastic season. So that's the, the old school, look at the saves, look at the ERA, and just look at the narrative of gosh, the guardians have needed him and that bullpen and they've been in a tight race most of the season and they have depended on Class A just basically being automatic. I think Van Graafs debits him with three blown saves.

I don't think he's blown one since mid-May and I think he may have won that one after blowing it. So he really has been as automatic as a closer can be. And then if you wanted to trot out some win probability based stats, you could do that too. He is, I believe, currently tied with Shohei Otani for the highest championship win probability added in baseball. So that takes into account not just the context of the game, but the context of the season. And if you're in a tight race, then those wins and those innings matter more.

So he is leading all pitchers in that category. He is leading all pitchers in regular old WPA, win probability added. He's done better really than a reliever has in several seasons, I guess, in in some of those categories, at least if you look at WPA, for instance, he's basically neck and neck with Zach Britton's 2016 and Blake Trinen's 2018, a couple fairly recent memorable reliever seasons. And then Eric Gagne, he's barely behind Eric Gagne's the last Cy Young season for a reliever seasons. And then Eric Gagne, he's barely behind Eric Gagne's

the last Cy Young season for a reliever back in 2003. Britain, by the way, had that 0.54 ERA in 2016, just in 67 innings. And Trinen had a 0.78 ERA in 80 and a third. So he's at 6.3 WPA, tied with Trinen, 10th of a win behind Britain, 3 10ths behind Gagné. So these are pretty impressive stats and numbers. And then as for the CWPA, I think Hector Nerys actually had a higher CWPA last year,

despite not really being a closer. But before that, I think you have to go back to Britain to find someone with a tally that high. So what do you think? In an earlier era, would Klasay be a super strong, actual winning the Cy Young contender? And in this era, how high could he conceivably go? Nicole Zichal-Klein Well, I feel like Britain is instructive, right? So in Britain's 2016 season, he finished fourth in the AL Cy Young voting behind Porcello, Verlander and Kluber.

That's right around where I would probably peg the ceiling of a very dominant closer unless a guy is deeper into a run that is understood to be sort of Hall of Fame worthy. And I think Clausay has been very good, but you know, he's not coming into this season with like Mariano Rivera's reputation, right? So I feel like fourth or fifth is kind of where guys mostly top out if they have a really dominant, very special year and I don't want to, you know, downplay the importance that he has had to the Guardians because I think you're right to say that they're bullpen generally and him in particular, he's hardly their only good reliever. That entire relief corps is pretty impressive, but he's been superlative for them and I think they'd be in

very sorry shape if it were not for him. So I think that that matters, but I also think that there's just a natural sort of resistance to putting those guys at the very top. I think that that matters, but I also think that there's just a natural sort of resistance to putting those guys at the very top. I think that a lot of voters are perfectly comfortable giving down ballot shine to closers and relievers, but we sat here collectively and freaked out about how many innings Corbyn burns through here that he won the Cy Young. So like I do think that the durability piece of it as understood in innings is really important to people, which I think is, you know, it's like a fine thing to prioritize even if the innings that Klause has thrown have been superlative and very good. And it's not like he's only thrown

like 30 of them, you know, he has 72 and a third. I also think part of it too is that if guys who play for the Dodgers and the Yankees do get a little bit of extra shine because they play for big teams, despite the fact that the Guardians are a playoff team and a playoff team that'll have a bye, they are still the Guardians. So I think that maybe the conversation would be slightly different if he were like doing this for the Yankees or the Dodgers, but I don't know, four or five somewhere in there. He'll definitely get down ballot votes.

If I had a Cy Young vote, I don't know exactly where I'd put him. I need to spend more time with it than I have just spitball in here. But he'd get down valid consideration for me. He's been amazing. He's been Ben. He just ran through it all. He's been spectacular. Really good. He's been fantastic. Yeah. I'm not supporting his case for Tsai. I'm just kind of curious about where he will end up and what that will say about how voters or some 30 vote subset of voters evaluate these things. And I wonder also, he has allowed five unearnies. I definitely shouldn't say that, but he has allowed twice as many runs as he has allowed earned runs.

It's the E part of it at the end that I am, you know, that's causing me to cringe. I don't know why Ernie, you know, it just feels, I don't know. I'm sure there are people who say that though. Oh yeah, they do. I didn't coin this just now, but he has allowed as many unearned runs as he has allowed earned runs. And also his FIP is good. It's not other worldly, which is why his baseball reference war is about double his fan graphs war. I don't know how much people are paying attention to that or care about war when it comes to relievers, but because he is not a super strikeout guy, I wonder if that hurts a little among the advanced stats crowd. Not that anyone is doubting that he's good, but he's

a ground ball and control guy and then strikes out like eight per nine. I mean it's it's not a particularly impressive strikeout rate for a reliever, let alone a closer these days. So I don't know if the fact that he does it that way maybe makes it pop off the page a little less. Like if he had a FIP to go with that ERA, then maybe that would boost him a bit more. But yeah, I think maybe fourth or so is the ceiling where Britain was. And then Trinen was sixth in 2018. And I think the last reliever to finish in the top three, third was Francisco Rodriguez in 2008.

So it's been a while, even since someone was a quote-unquote finalist. And then I think Trevor Hoffman in 2006 was the last runner up. And then of course, Gagne the last winner. So things have changed. So I guess I could see anywhere from third to sixth, probably. But that's probably different from how it would have been at one time, though I guess in an earlier era, he might have thrown even more innings and been a true fireman. And maybe if that kind of model of pitcher comes back again, maybe we will someday see a reliever, Wenis Aiyang again. But yeah, he's been great. It does strike me though that this has not been a particularly strong year for the top pitchers, the top starting pitchers that is. I mean, Scoobal has been great,

Chris Sale has been great. I was just about to say, what are you talking about? Beyond that though, the rest of the field. Okay, the very, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There are a bunch of guys having good seasons.

Good seasons. Very good seasons. But I'd say only Sale and Scoopal really reached the level of like superlative, really elite sort of Cy Young year. And so maybe that helps Klaas' case a little bit. I was just comparing, I'll put a spreadsheet up for anyone who's interested, but I looked at the average war of the top five war getting pitchers and the top five war getting hitters each year, going back to 1876 ALNL. And this year's difference between those two is pretty darn large. So right now, this is still changing slightly,

but the gap between the average war of the top five hitters and the top five pitchers by Fan Crafts War is about 3.7 wins above replacement. So the hitter top five are at 9.1 on average and the pitcher top five are at 5.4 on average. So that gap between those respective top fives is the fourth largest of all time and the largest since 1927. Only 1920, 1921 and 1927 have bigger gaps. And I guess the constant with those was Babe Ruth. And you know, maybe that's fitting because now we have Shohei Otani, the modern day Babe Ruth and also Yankee Sluggers being

part of that top five. But this group is pretty special. And I'm far from the first to point that out. But the hitters having the best seasons this year are really having fantastic seasons like newsflash, I know, but it's pretty impressive. It's the best top five average war showing for hitters since 2004. So it's been 20 years since we've seen a top five across baseball, this productive. So savor that, I guess, while we can and while we're weighing these awards. And as always, we say, unless you're actually voting, you don't have to tear down Bobby Witt Jr. to build up Aaron Judge or Gunnar Henderson or Shohei Otani for that matter. They're all excellent. We can appreciate and savor all

of these seasons. We can. We can just like appreciate them, let them wash over us like a bunch of our knees. The last time that the pitcher top five outwored the hitter top five is 1999. It's been a while. It's tough for pitchers to do that. It is. Just given innings limits, even though pitchers are great on a per inning basis. Yeah. They just. They only throw so much, you know?

Yeah. I mean, pitchers throw as many innings as they used to. They're just distributed among many, many individual arms and the top guys are just not quite as valuable as they were in some earlier eras, at least, whereas the hitters more or less are, and maybe that's why we've spent so much time talking about the top hitters this year, and every now and then we're like, boy, Chris Ael, Tarek Schubel, those guys are having fantastic seasons, but we're not obsessing over them

the way that we have with N-Judge and Otani and Soto, etc. You know, the thing about those guys is they play almost every day, Ben, you know? It's easier to rack them up. Last thing, this concerns someone who will no longer be playing every day, Ben. You know, it's easier to rack them up. Last thing, this concerns someone who will no longer be playing every day. I did not really expect to be potting about the Pittsburgh Pirates today,

let alone Rowdy Teles. Though you know, I'm taking a day trip to Pittsburgh on Thursday, and I'm going to the Pirates game, the final home game at PMC against the Brewers. That's why. And now after planning that trip, I find out that I'm going all that way for a Rowdy-free roster.

I feel like I need my money back here. Not that I was going to see Rowdy, but both he and Michael A. Taylor were designated for assignment by the Pirates. And this has caused more of an uproar than one might imagine for the fate of Rowdy Tlez late in a September and a lost pirate season because, well, I'll just read from an email we got from Brian in Nebraska, who had a rant of his own,

a Rowdy rant, who he wrote in, Rowdy Tlez, Brewer's legend, was DF-aid four at bats short of a contractual bonus. First of all, got to stop you right there, Brian, four plate appearances. Now, four at bats, important distinction. We preserve that distinction here. You're not the only person I saw say at bats instead of plate appearances, but pretty important for contract provision purposes. As a Brewer's fan and someone who bears a striking resemblance to Rowdy, according to my wife, this infuriates me. This sends a terrible message to any prospective

free agents. Yeah, they're division rivals, but Skeens & Company deserve better. PNC deserves better. Pittsburgh deserves better. I guess I just wanted to rant, but this does raise a question. How can nutting be stopped? We really need to stop nutting. Say no to nutting. I get what you're going for there. I did see nutting trending on Twitter and it wasn't our doing this time. Now the bonus that was at stake here, Ratty Tlaas has a base salary of 3.2 million this year on a one year deal with the pirates. He had a $200,000 bonus that was set to kick in if he got to that threshold of 425 plate appearances and they DFA'd him four PA away, essentially one game.

Now that certainly looks suspicious and shady and factoring in the nutting of it all, but I will in the interest of fairness and providing both sides here, I will give you the quotes from Ben Sherrington of the Pirates and Derek Shelton, manager. So Derek Shelton, when asked whether the bonus factored into this move, quote,

"'It did not factor into the decision at all. It came down to when the minor league season ended and these guys getting here, that's what factored into the decision at all. It came down to when the minor league season ended and these guys getting here, that's what factored into the decision the most. Ben Sherrington said, no factor at all. Zero factor in the decision. Aware of it, certainly. I'm aware of the contracts that all players have.

No factor at all, zero. And no, I'm not concerned. This is about whether it would hurt the Pirate's ability to recruit future free agents. If you're asking about optics going forward and how it affects business and things like that, no, contracts are negotiated in good faith. Then they live out. We feel like we gave Rowdy lots of opportunity here this year to his credit. He fought through some difficult times earlier in the year and fought his way out of it, had periods of success and periods of frustration.

This is just where we got to in the season, had nothing to do with where the plate appearances were lining up. What say you, Meg Rowley? So, well, first of all, like he's not going to come out and say, yeah, we cut him short of his bonus. Like, spoiler alert, I think you'd open yourself up to grievance if you did that. I think the Roddy Tlaas hasn't been very good at baseball this year. That is true. There's a universe of possibilities where this is truly performance related. I think there's a universe of possibilities where it's not exclusively performance related,

but the performance is bad enough that they feel like they can kind of get away with it. I also think that it does feel like a kind of crummy thing to do. I don't know that it will affect their ability to recruit free agents. You have to be in the market for free agents before you recruit them. So like, there is that piece of it. It's like one more game, man. You could give him four played appearances over your remaining games and let him make some money. And I know that's not how they're

thinking about it because they did this, but I don't know. I don't think it's the most egregious thing I've ever seen because he really, like, you know, circle of trust friends. He's been pretty bad, you know? he's below, he's, he's negative war player. And not for the first time. He was last year for Milwaukee as well. So he's sub replacement level and he got replaced. That does happen. Yeah.

It's the timing and it's Bob nutting and it's the pirates and they deserve zero benefit of the doubt, obviously. So yeah. Well, maybe you say like, what? You guys, you got guys you got to see? You guys got, you got guys you got to see in these last couple of games? Yeah, I know. You know, really?

You got guys you got to see? So I just think that this is the consequence of running an organization the way that pirates ownership has decided to run the pirates, which is that you don't get the benefit of the doubt. You are going to be perceived as being cheap until you demonstrate that you aren't. And I think that if you're rowdy to Les, like $200,000 is like a not small amount of money. I mean, he's not like going to make a $200 million free agent contract, right? It's not like he's earned nothing in the course of his Hidley career.

Over 10 million. Right. He's been around, but like 200K is a meaningful amount of money. And I don't know that I buy the idea that there's like so much evaluative benefit to seeing how whoever's going to replace him is going to do over the next however many days, right? Like just like, and the thing is put him on the bench and bring him in once a game and one more thing and then I'll stop having, you know, my synapses firing at random and giving me more material here.

If you are a team that has conducted yourself this way, and by this way I mean the nutting way, meaning that you've been cheap, you could decide to continue to be cheap, or you could realize that 200k isn't very much money to you, and that this might be some of the cheapest goodwill you've ever purchased. And just let the guy get his couple of plate appearances and let a beat know what the contract incentives are and talk about how Rowdy's year didn't go the way he wanted it to. He was disappointed, but he's been a really important presence in our clubhouse. Yeah, it was popular. Fans enjoy the rowdy experience.

We like the influence that he's had on some of the younger guys on our club. We thought this was the right thing to do. It's a season that isn't going to end the way we want it to, but that doesn't mean we can't end it the right way as it pertains to our players. There, I wrote it for you. So easy. 200K. Costs you nothing. Yeah, in the grand scheme of things. There's no obligation to do a favor for Rowdy Tulles. There's no ongoing relationship, no long-term arrangement with Rowdy Tulles. and is it going to redound to the Pirates benefit in some ineffable, nebulous way? I mean, it might in terms of perception.

I don't know, it might not. It might at least buy you the absence of bad PR, which is what's been happening over the past day or so, but maybe they've had so much of that that they figure it's a drop in the bucket. But in Rowdy's defense, which he does not play very well, which is part of the problem. This is part of the problem. That's part of the problem.

Yeah, he started the season in a super slump and he's hit quite well on the whole since then. So since the start of June, he has a 120 WRC+, which makes him the third best hitter on the Pirates on a rate basis, which is only saying so much about these Pirates, but it's Brian Reynolds, it's O'Neil Cruz, and then Rowdy. Now as Charington alluded to in his statement, it's been up and down. He started ice cold, then he was hot for a while. He's been cold again in September and that maybe precipitated this, but on the whole, he has for a good chunk of the season been one of the Pirates most productive hitters, even though he was worth only 0.7 war over that span of the WRC plus being 120. So the timeline, look,

it's plausible, it's defensible. I don't think you could win a grievance for this probably because Pittsburgh's AAA affiliate, they ended their season on the 22nd and then the Pirates were off on the 23rd and then on the 24th, they did this and they called up Leo Ferpagaro and Joshua Palacios, you know, I mean, Palacios is what, 29 or something. Pagaro, I guess it's like, it might be beneficial to see some more of him, but you know, they've seen these guys on the big league roster before, they're not top prospects. We're talking about a handful of games here at the end of a pirate season. Yeah.

Pogero played like 60 games or something last year. Like they know, you know what I mean? Like they, they know, they know what Leo Bergero is. They know. Yeah. It's not imperative that you, that you do this, that you get a longer look at Leo over at the end of the season. I don't think so So yeah, I mean, you'd think like, if you're protesting that much as zero factor, like just to avoid the appearance of it, you'd think like, just keep him or gosh, like anticipate this and cut him earlier. I guess, I mean, maybe when he was hitting better, it would have been harder to do defensively, but like doing it literally like one game maybe before he hits that threshold, it's just, it seems like the most suspicious time to do it.

So if your hands are clean here, if you've got a clean conscience and you're actually innocent, it's just, it's like you're framing yourself. It's like some Hitchcock movie or something. They got the wrong man. It's, I don't know the timing. It's just highly suggestive, even though, as you say,

I think there are performance related reasons why one would not want to start or employ Rowdy Talez to play Major League Baseball at this point. If you want to be happy for Pogero that he's earning a big league check for a couple of days, like, okay, like I get that. You know, if Rowdy's not on the roster, then somebody else is and that person's earning big league money and like that isn't a bad thing, you know, that's a good thing. But I think that when you say, well, we were aware of this, but it's not part of the decision, it's just like, well, I don't believe you though, is the thing.

And it could be totally true, but the organization has not conducted itself in aggregate in a way that bolsters that as like a real thing. So I don't believe it. And I also just think like, to your point, like, why not just avoid stepping on that particular rake? You know? Why why not just avoid stepping on that particular rake, you know, like yeah This is gonna maybe sound inconsistent with me saying hey just have him on rowdy to Les Oh my god, Ben Ben right now our trending player bar is Otani judge Julio

Who managed to have a 2020 season? Good job Julio Bobby with jr. And then rowdy to Les That's crazy. That is crazy. That probably hasn't been true for a while. He's ahead of Schuylp. He's ahead of Juan Soto. He's ahead of Jackson Merrill and Paul Skeens and Spencer Schwellenbach who may or may not have to pitch one of the most important games of the pre-entire stupid season because no one can read a weather report. What are we doing?

I'm all worked up about it again. But what I was about to say is that this might seem like I'm about to contradict myself because it's like if Rowdy Tlez is not good generally, even though he's been better lately, then why does it matter? But it's like Rowdy Talez, no offense Rowdy, he's not a high profile enough player to have it be worth stepping in, I'm going to do a swear s*** over. So just pay the man his money. Move on.

It almost makes the excuses more credible that it seems like such a blatant case of this sort of manipulation or chipping out. You don't have to play 10 dimensional chess or whatever. I know. I know everyone's immune to shame now and this is not actually taken into account, but I don't think it's quite as egregious in my mind as what the A's got away with a couple of years ago, which I still can't believe there were no consequences for that when they benched Elvis Andrus and then released him on August 17th of 2022. Right.

That was really bad. Even though he had been the second most valuable hitter and third most valuable player on the A's to that point, which also wasn't saying that much about the 2022 A's, but still he was an above average big leaguer that year. And then after the A's cut him loose and the White Sox picked him up, he played even better and amassed more war with the White Sox than any player did for the A's over that stretch, over that same span. And the A's meanwhile, in his place, I think they called up Sheldon Noisy, who was 27 years old and produced negative 0.7 war the rest of that season and hasn't

been back in the big league since. And they handed the shortstop position to Nick Allen. That was the explanation. Okay, we're going with the younger guy. We want to see him. And okay, maybe that was kind of true. But since Andris' release, Allen has been the second least productive Oakland A. This is hindsight, obviously, this is results, not process, but he has amassed negative 0.9 war in the two plus seasons since then. And so, Andrews had this $15 million vesting option for the 2023 season that would have kicked in

after 550 plate appearances, which he was still fairly distant from, but was on pace to make. And he did end up at five 77 after his white socks. And though that option didn't vest because of the team switch. So they did it far enough before he was close to that thresholds that maybe they escaped some scrutiny, but interest was a much better player that year. Then Rowdy has been this year was like arguably maybe the best player on the

A's that year, second best player. And they just cut him because I get why they wouldn't want Elvis Andrus for 15 million bucks in 2023, but the performance related reasons for cutting him just seemed fairly flimsy to me. And as far as I know, there was no grievance filed or any consequences. Andrus was upset about losing playing time, I remember, but was no grievance filed or any consequences. Andras was upset about losing playing time, I remember, but I don't think there were any actual proceedings. So if you can get away with that, then I guess you can get away with this. I guess. I'd like to point out that we

talked about it both times. We were worked up both times. Okay. So now the Braves are now not even sure if the Royals can make it to Atlanta. For their... Ben, what are we doing? It's a mess. It is a mess. You have to... We just have a whole... We have several agencies of the federal government who like spend so much time, there are so many PhDs that are

working for them so that this kind of stuff, it can be anticipated. Ben. Well, that's a mess. It's not the only mess. We're moving from mess to mess. Whether the skies do not clear up from here. We just talked about the A's getting away with the Elvis Andrus gambit. They've gotten away or attempting to get away with far worse. And speaking of the A's, let's speak some more of the A's because they are

playing their final home series in Oakland this week. And Melissa Lockard, who covers the A's and other baseball for the athletic. She's been a long time A's journalist and fan. This is very personal to her and she is back with us to bear her soul about how she's feeling and to sort of sum up the state of A's fandom as the Twilight of the Oakland era of the franchise proceeds. philosophical music. Effectively wild. Effectively wild. Effectively wild. Well, back in mid-March, Melissa Lockard, a senior editor and writer for the Athletic,

joined us to preview the 2024 Oakland Athletic season. We did not know then that Brent Rooker would be close to a 300-hitter, like that much-mocked graphic on the Las Vegas Stadium rendering foretold, or that he and Lawrence Butler would out-hit Juan Soto and Shohei Otani from July on, or that Mason Miller would stay healthy. But we did know that the A's would close out their home schedule and their 57-season stay in Oakland from September 24th to the 26th. That time has arrived and so has Melissa to help us commemorate and memorialize.

Melissa, thanks for coming back and sorry for your end to Oakland's loss. Yeah, thanks for having me. I appreciate it. How real and how final does this feel? Because you've been able to see this coming for some time, but it's been such a long and painful breakup with so many stops and starts that I wonder if there's some sliver of you that's still expecting a stay of execution or whether it has actually come home to roost that you are about to attend your final Oakland Athletic scheme.

Yeah. I mean, it has been the weirdest two years, I think, in maybe sports history in terms of having a team that announces it's leaving and then goes on this like, it would make a comedy show look ridiculous, the number of things that have happened over the last two years, which at times sort of took the sting out of it because it sort of seemed like, well, you know, how could these absurd people actually win? But I think once we knew that they were going to get a free stay in West Sacramento, it

became pretty clear that what's free was going to be taken and that was going to get a free stay in West Sacramento, it became pretty clear that what's free was going to be taken and that was going to be the last that we were going to see. Who knows what the future holds? Anything can happen. They certainly haven't put a shovel in the ground anywhere yet. But I think it felt pretty final on Friday when I went to the game with my sons. We walked around for the last time. I think most people are expecting that tomorrow is kind of the end.

AMT – I wonder if you can talk a little bit about that atmosphere because my sense of the A's fan base really leading into this last home series was one of a feeling of I think appropriate defiance, right? Their presence there was often about protest, it was about condemnation of this ownership group, the decision to move, the failure to get a reasonable deal done with the city. That's all well and good, but for the final one, was there sort of a shift that you observed in terms of how people were relating to their experience of being at the Coliseum and to the team itself?

Yeah. I mean, you know, I think even through all of the protests and all that, it still was always a very festive, very team supportive atmosphere, right? The players were never the issue, the manager was never the issue, it was always this kind of one person. So I think you felt that camaraderie throughout all of this. Even the small crowds, the cheers were still loud. The drums were gone for a lot of the season because out of protest, which obviously dampened some of the sound, but they were back.

But I think what I did notice a lot on Friday was just people really taking it in, and I'm sure that's only increased the last couple of days of just walking around the stadium, taking a lot of pictures. I think I took probably six or seven different people's pictures that people were taking pictures of us for. There's these two walls along the concourse that takes you from the first level to the second level of the Coliseum that are really well done.

They're these kind of historical timeline of the A's time in Oakland with a lot of the pictures. Athletics Magazine, which used to be this great program you could pick up once a month and a lot of the old covers that a lot of us who have been around for a while have in our boxes and boxes of things we all know what to do with after all this is done. But great pictures, kind of just memories of all of it. And there were so many people stopping and taking pictures of the wall and taking pictures of themselves with the wall. And I hadn't seen that before. So I think that's a lot of it is sort of just trying to take it all in.

You wrote a poignant piece this week, which we will link to and which we recommend about your history with the franchise. And as you said, attending the last game that you'll go to as a fan with your sons. But for those who don't know, can you talk a little bit about your history with this franchise? Because I guess it's self-evident to say that if not for the A's, we wouldn't be talking to you right now considering the A's are what we're talking about. But also, you might not be doing this job and a person who covers sports and cares about sports the way that you do, if not for this team. Yeah, no, for sure.

I mean, I grew up in the 80s and 90s when Walter Haas was the owner of the team. I grew up maybe 15 minutes from the ballpark and we spent a lot of time there as a kid and I fell in love with baseball because I fell in love with the Oakland A's. I was a huge fan and I was a huge fan when I went off to college and when I was living on the East Coast. I was actually on the East Coast in the early 2000s when they won the 20 straight games and had all those teams. It was my connection to fans online that kept me close to home when I was living so far away. This was before you could stream any television station or do whatever from anywhere. So really, every time the A's came to Baltimore, we would drive the two and a half hours, it seemed like, from D.C. to Baltimore to get there.

It was just always this feeling of home. And then when we moved back to the Bay Area, it was kind of the time that blogs were taking root. And my husband had encouraged me to write one, and it sort of weirdly turned into a career. It was something I did on the side as like a passion project for many years. Eventually got a chance to work for the company that hosted the website Oakland Clubhouse that I ran. But, you know, it was like not a career that I intended to do.

Like I, you know, I had done some journalism in college and I was always sort of interested in it, but it was, but it was baseball that led me to journalism and not the other way around. And I'm sure that your relationship to the team and the game has sort of changed over time as you go from being just a fan to a fan with a blog to a person whose career is to cover the sport. And I'm curious, Oakland fans are going to have their own sort of evolution. Now what is your sense of like how many folks are going to follow, maybe not with their

feet obviously, but with their eyes, this team as it departs the Bay Area and wherever they end up playing? Like you, I remain skeptical that they actually ever get a stadium built in Vegas, but maybe I'm underestimating John Fisher's team. That would be hard to underestimate. Yeah, I don't know. I'm not 100% sure. It's hard to quit something that you've habitually followed for so long.

Even as I've expanded my coverage this year to well beyond the local prospects that I've covered for many years here in the Bay Area and taken more of a national focus. You know, your eyes tends to go back to the part of the transactions page even that, you know, covers the organizations you're familiar with, the teams, the names that you're familiar with. It's a huge sport, so sometimes, you know,

having it narrowed down to one roster of players or two rosters of players is a little easier to sort of filter it. So I'm sure it's going to take some time, but unfortunately I think a lot of fans in this area have practiced with that, right? They had to make a decision when the Raiders left, are we still Raiders fans or are we going to just quit football altogether? I do think fundamentally baseball and football are very different in how you follow a team because I think so few people actually get to go to football games given the way they're priced and all that. But I still think

there's probably some commonality to the people that hung around with the Raiders and maybe the people who might keep some interest with this team. But I don't think a lot of people are going to follow them with their feet. They may, I think, peek in and maybe even in a disdainful way. You know, I think there's a lot of hurt feelings. I mean, they did not make this a smooth exit from this area at all. If you could look to the Cleveland Browns situation, it's sort of more of a direct parallel. And, you know, had Cleveland never gotten the Browns back, you know, or the version of it that they have now. I'm not sure what that healing process would have ever looked like in Cleveland, but I still know they can't

stand Art Modell and they never will. There's always going to be that uncomfortableness with what happened before and then what has happened since. That's going to remain here, I think, forever. I wouldn't expect most of them to go over to the Giants either. I think that's another aspect of this too, is that market doesn't just automatically double the way that I think maybe some people assume that it will. CB I might make some exceptions for particularly tortured or spoiled fan bases, but my sense is that the majority of most fan bases are sort of the same, that you kind of have your casual fans, your mainstream fans, who are just going to go to the game every now and then

and follow the team from afar and root for the home team. But every fanbase does have a distinctive character that comes maybe from the margins, the sickos, right? And so the A's certainly have a character. And I wonder how you would describe A's fans to the extent that they are a unique entity. Yeah, I mean, I think unique is the perfect word for it, right? I don't think you can draw what an A's fan looks like because they all come in every shape and size and color and style and background and the way they approach and love the game that you can

imagine, right? Like there's a contingent of people that fell in love with the team because they fell in love with Moneyball, right? And they approached the team from that perspective. There's a group of people that grew up literally going to the games because they grew up in Oakland and used to ride their bikes to the stadium. And that's a different group of people. There's the people that are there to do the drums and to be celebrating in kind of a festival

atmosphere. There are people that like to sit alone with their headphones and score the game and don't interact. I mean, it's a place where everyone can be and I think that has always been, I think, really nice. You look at some fan bases and it's like what it means to be a – and I don't want to pick on Yankees fans. I actually think Yankees fans are fantastic in a lot of ways and they were very kind on

Friday, I thought. But you kind of have a sense of there's a list of things that makes someone a Yankees fan. There's a respect for the history and all the other things that come in and the things you're expected to know about the franchise and all that. And I don't think there was ever that barrier with being an A's fan. Like you just showed up and whatever you brought

to the table, it was fine. So it's that blend of people that I think was always really special. I think in the sport in general, it's gotten more expensive. Stadiums have gotten smaller, more corporate boxes and all that. It has lost some of that flavor.

And this was one of the last few places that you still saw a lot of that. You mentioned the Yankees fans on Friday. I'm curious, in the time you've spent at the Coliseum over the season, what your observations have been of players and managers as they have rolled through potentially for the last time. There's a reason that the A's needed a new ballpark, right? But in the times that I've been to the Coliseum, I've often thought like, if this was my home park, I would feel very defensive of it.

I would want to point out the aspects of it that maybe don't get attention and are obviously good. This isn't just about sewage backup, right? So I'm curious kind of what the reaction has been as people in the game have rolled through and sort of maybe taken time to appreciate that this is their last time playing there. Yeah, you know, I think there's been a lot of respect. You hear it a lot in the opposing broadcasts too, which, you know, of course, A's broadcasts are have been sort of muzzled as to what they can really say from their

heart on understandably because you know they've got jobs on the line there and- but every broadcast that has come through. When it's their teams last time to be there has taken a lot of time to sort of. Talk about. You know what their

memories are of the Coliseum what made it a special place. You see players like Chris Bassett, we were at a game earlier this year that Chris made his last start, and he went back on the mound and took some dirt with him. And I think that was one of those things where it's like, you know, players are understanding what they're leaving behind here. It's not just a concrete building that needed some upkeep. You know, it's sort of like, I think if you think about it, like you think of your childhood home, right? Like most people's childhood homes age, right? And they're older and the sewage might not

work that well. And this door doesn't close the way you want it to and all that sort of stuff. But like you close your eyes and you think of home, that's the place you think of. And I think that's what has felt that way a lot for the people that are coming through. And you sense the respect that they've had there. And yeah, I mean, you know, Yankees fans have always shown up at the Coliseum. There's a lot of people out here who either were from New York or just had that have been their team. You know, we have a lot of experience being amongst a lot of Yankees fans at these shows.

And a lot of them were like going around and being like, wow, this is the last time I'm seeing the Yankees here. Which, you know, there's so many memories even just of great matchups with those other teams that I think people really appreciate. So I mean, you have people flying in from all over the country just to come and say goodbye to this building that everybody thought was so horrible, which I think is also really fascinating as well. So, you know, I don't know if there has ever been a team that has left an area where there has been more like collective national sort of like, oh, wow, look what we're losing here than this situation

has. And maybe because it's grown, you know, drawn on long and like this social media atmosphere has allowed it to kind of be more public. But that part I found has been really, really interesting. Yeah, I was going to ask about that. The solidarity from other fans, the commiseration, the sympathy, how much has that bucked up A's fans as they go through this? Obviously, they've kind of drawn solace from each other and all of the incredible fan events and reverse boycotts, etc. But the sympathy expressed by others, the fact that sell the team became a meme, league wide in a sense, has that helped?

Has that made it feel a little less like you're going through this alone? Yeah, I mean, I think it has. I think it's also kind of in some ways encouraging to see what might happen from this that could help the sport be better. You know, not to be all like mushy and I understand it's a business, but like we talk about it being a business so much now that it's become less of a fun

family event than it used to be when we were kids. Right. It was always a business. Owners always made money. There's a reason that the Black Sox scandal happened. Right. Like there's all these things that have taken place over the years that tell you that it's a business, but we didn't have like team executives constantly telling us it was a business until the last maybe 15 years or so. And I think fans are sort of tired of it, right? Like we are giving you our hard earned money, is sort is what the fans are saying, and you're not giving us back the atmosphere and the escape from our everyday lives that we used to expect.

So this demand to try to make ownership more accountable to their fan bases and to their customers, if they're going to treat it like a business, I think is something that will benefit the league if it really takes hold. And so if nothing else, if the cell movement results in owners in Chicago and owners in Pittsburgh and if you, these owners in Anaheim being more accountable

to their fan bases, what a better legacy can you leave behind than that? Yeah, I guess the fact that there's no real active, hot rivalry with any other team, that the A's don't currently pose a threat to anyone's playoff hopes, let's say, maybe makes it easier to pity them or feel for them, although they have made strides on the field, which I do want to ask you about. In this hypothetical where the A's are

competitive and one of the better teams in baseball, then I guess they might have a different ownership group that had actually spent on the team and kept some good players around and maybe wouldn't be picking up stakes. So it's hard to even imagine that alternate history. But I did want to ask you a little bit more about the Coliseum because as you were sort of touching on there, I think any ballpark where you had your formative fan experiences will be special to you. Even if it is a dump, and I'm not saying the Colosseum is, even if it really is a dump, you remember it fondly because you were introduced to baseball there and you had great

experiences there. And the Colosseum is not quite the caricature of feral cats and possums and sewage. What is it about that place that only A's fans would know? The little quirks, the pluses, not just about the fans, though that's a big part of it of course, but what is it about that building that you will miss watching baseball in? Yeah, you know, it's beautiful sight lines. I mean, you know, you go a lot of the stadiums, whether they're the older ones that are still around or the newer ones that are being built now, the sight lines to the field itself aren't always as clear and unobstructed as you'd like. There's always great sight lines there. The field is beautiful.

The weather, you know, like, I mean, it can get cold at night, but like it's never too hot, never rained, you know, sitting around wondering if you're gonna, this passing thundershower is gonna pass or if you're gonna be there, you know, with half a game and then have to come back the next day. The accessibility of it from so many different parts of the Bay Area makes it easy. It's right off the freeway.

It's got a train station and a BART station literally attached to it. There's the tailgates that you can walk through as you're coming in that are there pretty much every game. The sound system, the PA announcers, the A's were very fortunate to have first Royce Steel and then Dick Callahan are two of the greatest PA announcers in baseball. And that rhythm of their voices and introducing the lineup and the familiarity of the sights and sounds that you would get, it was always very entertaining. The people that worked the scoreboard and the music and all that,

always had a really good idea of how to connect with the fans in between innings and with the songs and everything else. So, you know, much the same way you would think of like Wrigley Field and the way that their sound system and the organ and everything else sort of built into that experience. The songs that they played, it was dot racing on the board, it was the little jokes that they made with the animated graphics back when that was something that you didn't see at every stadium that I think just sort of created a spirit there that was always really fun. Obviously, Mount Davis created a barrier to those hills, but before that, it was also a beautiful

view. So a lot of us, I think, can close our eyes and still remember that. You mentioned that the business aspect of this has been sort of front and center throughout the saga of the A's trying to get into a ballpark and then the decision to leave. I feel like I can perhaps anticipate your answer to this question.

But what was your reaction to John Fisher's letter to fans? I'll tell you about it as an editor, you know, it's just what I do for a lot of my time. The fact that I read that letter first and missed the Loma Prieto typo first because I was so angry in reading it that it tells you that I like. And then I took a minute and then I was like, wow, this is really misplaced. Commas everywhere. I mean, it was bad. Like, no, did no this is really misplaced commas everywhere. It was bad. Did no one else read this before it went out?

I don't know. I feel like he's had 20 years to say something. He was granted two interviews in that time with local media. He had opportunities to shape this narrative and he chose not to do it. And a letter clumsily written on a Monday before the last home stand of the time here was never going to help, right? Maybe if he writes a letter that's more heartfelt and meaningful at the beginning of the season and then rolls out all sorts of really great remembrances and fan benefits and stuff for the final year here, then maybe that's taken a little bit

differently. But hastily written, clearly not proofread, sent out to everybody on the Monday before they're going to leave, it just felt like the lack of care that you felt the entire time. And I think that's it. This never felt like an ownership that was in it with you. And I think that just sort of reiterated that to everybody. And I think, again, the timing of it, like you had every day to do it, to do it right at the end. It's almost like you handed in your term paper with like 30 seconds to spare, you know, and you forgot to staple it.

So I don't know, I think it's just, it was way too little, way too late. And it really, at that point, nobody wanted to hear from him anymore. They just wanted to sort of think of the things that had made the organization special to them that didn't involve him. Yeah. I feel bad bringing that up though. I was going to if Meg didn't, because we've been striking this elegiac tone and you were expressing your gratitude and your peace and better to have

loved and lost, right? And then the John Fisher letter just rubbed salt in the wound. And I wonder what the motivation for it was. Is he so out of touch that he actually thought that message would resonate, the literal we tried, that that would provide some sort of solace when anyone would want him to just slink off in disgrace at this point and probably not say anything. I mean, I guess you could construe not issuing any statement

as some sort of insult, but at this point, you know, they're past the points of repairing that relationship. I don't know. I mean, I don't know what goes through his head at all. I mean, you know, you still you think back to that that moment in the owners meeting last off season when, you know, the three fans that were filming the documentary, the sell the team documentary, and they confronted him and he said it's been worse for him than it's been for you. I mean, I think sometimes these people can live in a bubble that is so much smaller than the rest of us live in that nothing gets in.

I'm sure he's not on Twitter. I'm sure he's not out there in the world looking up his name on Google and all that. So in his own world, he may think that that is exactly what everyone wanted to hear at that moment. I don't know, but clearly he needs some better PR. I imagine it's been tough to get invested in the team on the field this year because

the deeper you care about that team, the more painful it is when it's ripped away from you. But that team has played pretty well for the past three months. The A's have a winning record over the past three plus months now more than half the season, and we named some of the players who have maybe made this last season both a little more bearable and a little more bittersweet. So is there a sense of gosh, it would almost be easier to stomach this if they were still the A's of last year and just hopeless and hapless? Does any part of you think, gosh, I would want to stay with this team and watch and see what happens to it even after they desert us through no fault of the players?

What do you think of the A's competitive prospects going forward? Yeah, I mean, you know, again, the players have been nothing but gracious. And I mean, the amount of strain that has been placed on people that had no responsibility for this over the last two years, you know, is really kind of unacceptable that, you know, like they can't just play baseball. They're having to kind of live through this in a way that, you know, isn't really fair to any of live through this in a way that isn't really fair to any of them. But that being said, this is a team that they've got a lot of ways to go to get to where they need to be to be really competitive.

But you can see the outlines of where that could happen with the talent that is already within the organization. I don't think it's all there and firing on old cylinders yet. But I think you can see it. Whereas especially, I think, towards the tail end of 2022, and then definitely last season, it was harder to see where the outline was. But you've got a core.

I think you've mentioned Lawrence Butler and Brent Rooker. I think JJ Bleday is also an underrated hitter who can do a lot there. So you've got three hitters that are already pretty solidly locked in. I think Shea Langelier is also underrated in terms of what he provides as a hitter from the catching position. And then you've got guys like Zach Gelof and Jacob Wilson that are young players that

are going to have to work through it a little bit, but the talent is there. You've got guys coming up, both in the, they have a lot of infielders. I haven't quite figured out where they're going to find some outfielders, but they do actually have Colby Thomas in the outfield that I think he'll probably make his debut next year. And he's another one who's that power speed element that they've been able to bring up with a lot of the players is with his game as well. And I think it's exciting. You look at the bullpen with Mason Miller there, and there's some other guys that have shown flashes of being able to build a core bullpen around there. You know, in the rotation, I think there are arms. I don't think you can point to five for sure and say, okay, those are

the five they're going to move forward with, but it isn't nearly as helpless as it was at points in the last two years where you were like, these guys aren't even going to make it out of the second inning. There is a lot to work with. I think their draft this past July was really solid. I think Nick Kurtz will be up there and how they decide to work with him and Tyler Soderstrom at first base is going to be an interesting decision for them to have to make. But that's another guy who can bring a lot of power. And I think one thing he can bring that they've lacked a lot of is a plate discipline.

And if they can shore up their plate discipline up and down the lineup, they could be a lot more dangerous a lot quicker. Kaitlin Luna You mentioned disruption and you're going to have the conclusion of their final home stand. In some ways, the disruption, at least physically, is done for fans. But what is the state of affairs for all the folks who work for the team in the front office from a scouting perspective? I know that the concession workers and grounds crew and whatnot, I imagine, are going to have to be looking for other work, but what is your sense of sort of where that transition

is for the other folks who work for the A's? Yeah. I mean, it sounds like business office, like ticket sales and marketing and a lot of that may not be going with them, or at least the majority of them will also be looking for work. Same with Diamond Vision ground crew, or sound crew, whatever you want to call that. But the main front office from the baseball operation side of things and the scouting I think is mostly remaining intact. And that's a group frankly that's been there longer than John Fisher has for the most part.

They've survived a lot of things. I think they'll probably survive this too. Whether they commute up to Sacramento, whether they, I'm not sure exactly what their plans are. Once the move, if it does happen, away from Sacramento to someplace further away, like Vegas or something, there's a lot of people who have Bay Area roots here and have here a long time that it'll be interesting

to see what their decisions are. So, you know, it's been a lean front office in terms of numbers all along. And so I don't think that'll change a whole lot. How would you break down the future of A's fans in terms of their investment in baseball? Because, of course, the A's are leaving, the Coliseum is not leaving the soccer club, the roots are taking root, as you recently wrote, and the ballers are around. There are other sports to take in, but when it comes to Major League Baseball, as you

said earlier, it's not as if everyone's just going to switch allegiances to the Giants all of a sudden, but if you had to break it down and estimate, okay, what percentage of A's fans will start getting invested in the Giants? What percentage will continue to retain some fondness for the A's and follow them from afar and hold out hope that maybe they'll return someday? And what percentage might just renounce baseball entirely because of this experience or maybe at least take a break and detox before they can learn to love again. Yeah, I think it's hard to say. I would guess the older, anyone who's sort of a fully formed adult

who's lived through a lifetime of being with the team is maybe going to step back from Major League Baseball some. Maybe it's the ballers that replaces it. Maybe it's just finding other things to do Maybe it's the ballers that replaces it. Maybe it's just finding other things to do in the summer than baseball. The younger generations, who knows, right? Even my son, my younger son, he's like, well, I still want to be an A's fan. And of course, he can choose to do whatever he wants. He's going to get to do that. And I think for them, it's a different experience.

I imagine those born into the Bay Area a generation from now are certainly not going to be held back from the lack of baseball in Oakland and choosing a different team. I think all of those things are going to be a mix. So I don't know that I can give you a breakdown percentage. But I think there are a lot of people who have come away from this experience feeling less confident that the

league is something they want to support, which I think is something that perhaps Major League Baseball should be concerned about. The league doesn't look good here. It looks like it's protecting a certain class of people, i.e. the owners, well above any interests of their own fans. There's a disconnect. And this is a sport that requires so much fan involvement, right? This is not eight home games a year on a Sunday. This is 81 home games on school nights and weekends

and weekdays and this and that. And if you don't have that attachment to your fans, you're really going to lose it at a different level, unless it's just going to become something for people to gamble on. And that's, I think, a worrisome trend that there's more focus on that than on trying to connect with the kid who would want to spend his allowance going to a game. And I wouldn't fault any fan for any response after this ordeal. It would be a shame if John Fischer deprived many A's fans of their affection for baseball entirely, but I would totally understand it because it's hard to

love something that doesn't love you back and the A's under Fischer certainly haven't. And I just, it's a fan grass podcast. I had to ask you to put percentages on it, but it's tough to estimate. I know. I'm terrible with numbers as I wrote another story, so I apologize. Well you referred to Fisher, Dave Cavill and Co. winning earlier, and I wonder whether you think they have won. I mean, they've gotten their way in a sense, but probably this isn't the ideal outcome that they had envisioned either in Oakland or out of Oakland.

If it's a victory, it's probably a Pyrrhic one at this point and much remains to be seen about the final terms, of course. But do you think, they think, this was worth it? Or are they just in too deep to admit that they've made mistakes? Yeah, I honestly don't know. I think that's another thing that's kind of hard here is that the commitment to staying here seemed real for a very brief amount of time there in 2018, 2019. Was that something that they really did want,

and they thought they were going to actually commit to it, or was it all some sort of crazy, elaborate smoke screen just to be able to have an exit plan that the league would accept? I don't know. You really don't know. I feel like that's probably giving them too much credit to think that they would have thought six

moves ahead and created this long, drawn-out negotiation with Howard Terminal with no intention of actually following through with it. But I really don't know. They don't seem to be as sad about this as the rest of us are. They do, I think, view this as a, we need to be making this amount of money for it to work. And I assume that the move to West Sacramento where they won't pay any rent and they get to remain on revenue sharing and all that means they will continue to make whatever they want to be making. And I assume they also still at this point think they're going to actually build that stadium in Las Vegas. And so at the point that you build a new stadium in Las Vegas, the way that again, Mark Davis

can tell them, they will be printing money at that point, I'm sure. There's been no thing that has shown that the legal force them to spend that money either. So there are end goals here they probably haven't reached yet, but if they believe they're going to get there, then I assume they think they're on the right path. Yeah, and I guess kind of a related question, like what is your sense of how the league views the current state of affairs? Because the Oakland situation is certainly the most dramatic

in terms of a stadium dispute, but it's far from the only one that baseball is facing right now. And the backlash there, I think, publicly has been quite swift. So what is your sense of how Manfred and co. sort of view how things have unfolded? Yeah, I mean, at some point, I would

have thought the league would have stepped in and said, listen, we need to take over at least the communications of this, because you guys aren't doing a good job of controlling the message here. And they haven't done that. So my sense is that what they are hearing and understanding about the situation is not coming from anywhere else, but from John Fisher and the other owners who

support John Fisher. I don't know that they really even get the sense of how bad this looks for them, because I don't know that they're looking. They've shut off replies on the A's social accounts. They don't talk about this departure on their national accounts. They've muzzled on the A's social accounts. They don't talk about this departure on their national accounts. They've muzzled announcers where they can.

So there isn't a lot of information getting to the people that make the decisions, I don't think, i.e. the other 29 owners. So I don't know. He has support from the Giants, so they're getting that side of it too. So I don't think they're as upset with him as they should be, and I don't know that they fully see the effect. Now, what I do think is interesting is that, I don't know if you guys saw that today, that Portland announced they were going to, they're moving forward with their plan to

build a stadium. I think as long as there are markets like Portland and Salt Lake City and Las Vegas and Nashville that are open and are still actively recruiting to bring teams to those jurisdictions, none of this really matters probably at the end for Manfred and Company because they can still use that cudgel to get people to pay up in the cities that they are vulnerable like the White Sox situation. But the moment that those dry up, then maybe they start to pay attention to this. But I think as we've learned with even just this West Sacramento situation and Vivek giving John Fisher a freedom to go in and destroy his stadium and his whole RiverCats set up

there for no rent, there's always someone who wants to do this. And so as long as there's somebody, one person who wants to bring it to the city that's gonna do the work for them, you know, the league can continue to operate this way. You wrote in your piece, I always harbored this fantasy of growing old at A's games in Oakland,

eventually retiring and becoming that white haired lady in the stands with a hat full of pins and a season long scorecard pad. I dreamed of introducing my grandkids to the game that I loved through the way that I learned to love it. I'm so sad that will never happen. I guess I'll have to take up baking after all. Are you going to be acquiring the cases of flour and the baking sheets and the batter immediately or are you going to wait? Let's see how things go 2028-2029. At that point, maybe I can commit to the baking, but let's hold out some hope. Let's still harbor some slim hold on that fantasy of growing old at Ace Games in Oakland. Well, as I alluded to, my lack of

ability with numbers and percentages does not bode well for me becoming a great baker, but I tend to be a bit more of a freelance cook, but I would like to try. So we will see. It may be more of a half measure kind of thing, if I can use a baking term, that I kind of stick my toes in a little bit and not. But I think, I mean, obviously I still work in the business quote unquote, and obviously I'm not going to turn off the TV and never watch baseball again. But I think it's become more of a job than a pleasure for the first time in 20 plus years of doing this.

And I think that certainly doesn't feel great. But yeah, we'll see. I'm open to what can come. I don't think that the government is going to give me Social Security for a while. So I've got a while to go before I get there, even if the hair is getting to the point that I'm getting to the white-haired lady. So yeah, so we will see. I'll leave all opportunities open.

But yeah, I mean, you know, baseball is supposed to be passed down from one generation to the other. It was passed down to me from my dad who grew up in Chicago taking the L to Wrigley and to Kamisky. And you want to be able to think that you can do the same for your grandkids. And obviously, I've passed on some of it to my sons already, but them experiencing this in their most formative years of fandom is probably not gonna make them

as ardent of a fan as I was. Hopefully the funding for social security is solid, more shored up than compared to the Las Vegas ballpark funding. That's a little more nebulous. Yeah. Well, lastly, we're speaking to you before Wednesday's game. And then of course the finale is slated for Thursday.

So what are your hopes and or fears for the atmosphere at that final game? Yeah, I mean, I hope it continues to be, I think what you saw the majority of last night, I know there was a video of somebody taking some seats, but I think what you heard and saw last night of everybody, you know, like the celebration for that walk-off win of a meaningless game between two teams that are going home in a week, um, you know. I felt like a playoff game. Everyone was still there, everyone was cheering,

everybody was jumping around, there's all the let's go Oakland cheers and stuff. I hope that that's what people get to have one more time because that's not what you're going to have anymore at that venue with the A's. I hope they bring out all the old songs, all the old different things that the old, like, different things that people just remember and associate with their time there, and that everyone can fully enjoy themselves.

And that, you know, that people are allowed to enjoy it, too. I think there's this sort of expectation set up that there is going to be bad things that happen. And, you know, obviously it only takes one person doing something stupid to make something bad happen. But, like, I think, you know, hopefully that's not how security is taking this either, that everyone's going to be there knowing that people are going to be happy and enjoying things and that everybody can get along. As I was leaving the game Friday, traffic flow, they have not taken a lot of care with

how things are set up there. And traffic flow to get out of the stadium through the first level concourse was like wildly backed up for reasons that were hard to understand. And you know, that was like, you could have seen fights. It was an extra inning game, a tight game between, you know, the A's and the Yankees, whatever. And people were just like cheering and whatever and pretending they were like, you know, in a moving river and it was fine.

So I hope it's that because it was like that on Friday and that people can remember it forever. Well, in his phony and misleading letter, John Fisher wrote, I wish I could speak to each one of you individually. I'm sure that many Ace fans would want to give him a piece of their mind. And they have to the extent that they can

with all of the social media replies turned off, which to be fair is probably for the best for the poor social media managers. John Fisher wouldn't be seeing those. Well, John Fisher probably doesn't and even if he were willing to speak to everyone, I don't know that anyone really wants to hear from him at this point, but it has been nice and heartening to hear from Ace fans like you, who I think have offered really touching and fitting salutes to the team this week, and I hope that you and other A.I.S.E. fans get the farewell you want. Thank you.

I really appreciate it. All right. Well, we here at Effectively Wild extend our warmest podcast condolences to all the A.I.S.E. fans, not just Melissa. Every fan base, well, almost every fan base has to deal with losing teams, as in teams that lose more games than they win. Oakland has had to deal with losing teams, as in teams that left town. That's gut-wrenching, especially when it happens this way. In his letter, Fisher wrote, I can tell you this from the heart, we tried.

Well, I'm not giving him an A's for effort. It's an F for effort. An F-ert. Sorry. Strained puns probably not helping. A few quick follow ups. Joel Sherman of the New York Post did some reporting about the decisions or indecision surrounding the Mets and Braves in Hurricane Helene. He writes, The Braves were expecting large attendance for the three games and did not want to forego the gates nor work through the logistics of moving personnel such as security, concessionaires, etc. to other dates or

start times. The two teams had a common off day on Monday. The weather was such that a double header could have been played Tuesday. The Mets pitched the idea of moving up the start time Wednesday before the forecast worsened. In the most drastic move, the series could have been relocated to an empty park not under the threat of the storm, such as in Texas. But MLB did not force a change of any type. It felt forcing the Braves into a double header when they were two games behind the Mets when the series began was a strong disadvantage to avoid. In addition, the league was dealing with what it felt

were better potential forecast to play at least Wednesday through Monday. And by the time the forecast worsened, there was not enough time to order a substantial change to the schedule. Well, relocating the series, certainly a strong disadvantage to avoid, but this outcome also one to avoid. And hey, forecast change. Projecting storms isn't so much easier than projecting the postseason, but this is far from

ideal in a number of ways. Sherman wrote, if both the Mets and Braves know their fate through Sunday, MLB is likely to cancel the doubleheader. The games also are likely to be canceled if only seeding is at stake and both teams know they are in the playoffs. The Braves lead the season series to date and would be awarded the higher seed. If everything is settled after the opener, the nightcap likely would be canceled. Oof. Also, Emmanuel Classe saved another game after we recorded the intro to this episode. It's his 47th, another scoreless inning, lowered his ERA to.61, stays one save behind Ryan

Helsley who saved his 48th for St. Louis. Now Kossay just needs 1 and 2 thirds more scoreless innings to displace Fernando Rodney. And finally, one more tidbit of the sliding style data that Mark Simon of Sports Info Solutions has been dispensing. He mentioned to me that in case anyone's curious, there is unsurprisingly a difference in the rate of head first and feet first slides on Steal attempts compared to all other slides. Steals, Mark says, are 60% headfirst. All other slides are 76% feetfirst. So now you know. If you want to support the podcast,

if you want to access those bonus episodes and playoff live streams we mentioned at the top of the pod, you can do so by going to Patreon.com slash Effectively Wild, as have the following five listeners. Adam Webb, Nathan Frishberg, Stephen M, Benjamin Lee, and Tim Parcheck, thanks to all of you. Patreon perks include the aforementioned bonus episodes and playoff livestreams, as well as access to the Effectively Wild Discord group for patrons only. Coming up on 1,500 highly informed, inclusive, active members, you can join their ranks at the lowest Patreon tier. Other perks include prioritized email answers, discounts on merch and ad-free FanGrafts memberships, autographed books, personalized messages, so much more. Check out all the offerings at patreon.com slash effectively wild. If

you are a Patreon supporter, you can message us through the Patreon site. If not, you can contact us via email. Send your questions, comments, intro and outro themes to podcast at fangraphs.com. You can rate, review and subscribe to Effectively Wild on iTunes and Spotify and other podcast platforms. You can join our Facebook group at facebook.com slash group slash Effectively Wild.

You can find the Effectively Wild subreddit at r slash Effectively Wild. And you can check the show page at Fan Graphs or the episode description in your podcast app for links to the stories and stats we cited today. Thanks to Shane McKeon for his editing and production assistance. We'll be back with one more episode

before the end of the week. Talk to you then. Discussing baseball news genetically, and the Coneys semi-erotically. And the punny said erotically Staff was passed, passed, and better for free Three new episodes for us each week Effectively, why? Effectively, why?