Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 2226: The Hug Heard ’Round the World

Episode Date: October 4, 2024

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about distracting digital and between-pitch ads and ever-present win probability graphs on playoff broadcasts, the concept of controlling your own destiny, Orlando Arcia hugging Manny Machado, consternation about postseason small samples, Monday’s memorable Mets-Braves doubleheader, Carlos Mendoza’s Edwin Díaz decision, the most compelling postseason storylines, the early exits of […]

Hello and welcome to episode 2,226 of Effectively Wild, a FanGraphs to Baseball podcast brought to you by our Patreon supporters. I'm Meg Rowley of FanGraphs and I am joined by Ben Lindberg of The Ringer. Ben, how are you? I'm overwhelmed by how much we have to discuss today. Oh boy, so many things. This is what happens when you devote an entire episode to the White Sox, and then a few days go by, we've missed three eliminations, we've had multiple front office overhauls, we've had just so much to discuss and so we will get right to it. Although I would like to start by noting that when I was watching Braves Padres, game two

on Wednesday evening, it's the ninth inning, the Braves are facing elimination. It's super high stakes. It's a one run game at that point. Robert Suarez comes in to try to close things out for San Diego. And Robert Suarez, I'm watching on ESPN via YouTube TV. And he was flickering. He was shimmering. It looked like he was in the Take On Me video and was entering the comics world, or like he was streaming on Twitch while playing World of Warcraft or something. We have talked about the green screen effect before, and some listeners have written in and ranted about this,

but I think it bothered me more in this situation than it has ever bothered me before, because this is when the player is superimposed on the backdrop of a digitally inserted ad that is behind home plate. And I don't mind the idea of digitally inserted ads back there, you can't necessarily tell the difference and you are marketing to a national audience

or not just people in the ballpark, so I get it. And the ad itself often looks fairly convincing, but the way in which the player is superimposed against this ad and there's this green screen effect, they got to figure this out. Cause it was legitimately distracting to me. It was the pitcher and then it was also lefty batters and they were just sort of phasing in and out of our reality. It was just like, there must be technology to make this work

and have it be a little less eye catching. I mean, not expecting like there've been plenty of CG problems when it comes to major motion pictures these days, because the whole industry is overloaded. But can we not perfect the technology to make it a little less obvious that the ad is not actually in the ballpark and that the player is just kind of being put atop it because it really, it stands out. And I'm trying to focus on like this moment when everything is at stake and the season is on the line. And I'm wondering if Robert Suarez is about to wink out of existence. Yeah. Well, and particularly because, you particularly because there's the moment itself and you feel taken out of

it because of the way that the pitcher is interacting with that ad or sometimes the way that the hitter is interacting with that ad. And then it becomes even more clear that something is afoot when they move away from the center field camera because I'm forgetting which hitter I noticed this with, but you know, they cut to sort of an angled shot of a hitter, this was a right-handed hitter, and it was clear that like you were seeing in the background, not the superimposed ad,

but the ad as it actually exists in the ballpark, and then they cut back to the center field camera, and there was the superimposed ad again. And I just was, you know, really was distracting and disorienting. And it was particularly funny because in this instance, and you know, the ad that they choose to superimpose varies, you know, game to game, sometimes inning to inning, batter to batter even.

But this was like a play ball ad, which is an MLB initiative and a good MLB initiative, right? One that we think is worthwhile, but the league itself is undermining the visual quality of its own product in service of its own ad. It was just so, Ben, didn't care for it, you know? Yeah, it's bugging me. It's still enjoyable baseball. It's not like it's ruining the postseason for me, but I am noticing it more and more. And I don't mind a bit of digital trickery, again, if it's just to put in ads that you can change around a few times or for something that

we would actually want MLB to be promoting, but you gotta make it convincing. You just, you gotta fool me better than that. It just, it looks low rent. Or just, you know, put up for an actual consistent banner ad back there, uh, that doesn't change and get rid of the superimposed ads altogether. You know, I think that you should always prioritize the aesthetic of the game itself rather than advertising. I realize that that sounds Pollyannaish and like I'm asking for a thing that's not gonna happen. And I know that Ben, but it is what I want regardless.

So here we are, you know. Well, speaking about the aesthetics, we will get to the actual games and results, but while we're doing broadcast criticism here, have you noticed that the between pitch ad has metastasized? It has proliferated? This is not a new thing.

It was new within the last, I don't know, decade or so, and it was jarring when I first noticed it, but now it seems like it's more frequent and we're getting these between pitch cutaways or the picture in picture effect where you're between pitches and suddenly the screen changes and you've got two different boxes and one of them is showing an ad while you can still see the game on the other box muted and it's often just like a five second thing cause there's not that much time now. You've got the pitch clock. And I don't know whether it's because of that

or between inning breaks being curtailed or what, but it seems like they're just trying to shoehorn in these ads that are pretty distracting. I mean, an ad behind home plate or on the walls or whatever, I'm used to that. But when you're kind of constantly muting the commentary and minimizing the game to have this like, well, buy this thing, hurry, buy it. Okay, back to the game. It's very frenetic. And it just, it seems to be happening more often. They're just like really trying to cram those ads in these days.

Yeah, I agree. It feels like it is an increasing part of the whole thing. And, you know, I'll just say, we don't have to linger on this because I'm sure it's not fun for the people watching the ads and it's just not a fun thing to contemplate generally, but like, oh my God, Ben, the campaign ads, it's just incessant. I realize, I live in Arizona. I understand. I understand. Okay?

I get it. I'm not saying get rid of them, I guess, but I am saying, dear God, I long for the sweet release of a Draft Kings ad, you know? It's just, it's just, it's just. So it hasn't been the most enjoyable ad experience. I will also say that I'm at the point where I'm getting the little songs stuck in my head. I've been singing- That's a most season tradition. Yeah, I've been singing Kayser-Ross-Raw all week and fine, you know, weird song. You know, the message of that song, pretty strange, Ben, when you think about it, you're

like, what kind of motherly advice was this? You know, like what? What? Yeah, just like a complete abdication over like you directing your own life and not in a way that acknowledges like systemic problems, but it's just like, you know, life. And not in a way that acknowledges systemic problems, but it's just like, eh, you know, whatever. What are we doing anyway? That reminds me, actually,

I had one more point about the broadcast, but since you mentioned controlling your own destiny, you know that saying, that phrase, they control their own destiny? We heard that a lot late in the season, you always do. Yeah, you always do. I've been thinking about the significance of that phrase, a team X controls its own destiny. Whether I buy it, I think it's a useful phrase because it signifies essentially that if you win all your games, if you win out, if you defeat a certain opponent X number of times, you have the capacity to propel yourself

into the postseason through your direct actions, as opposed to when you don't control your destiny, you're depending on events that are entirely outside of your control, games that you are not participating in. You're relying on some rival to lose against someone else in order for you to get in. So I think it's a useful distinction to draw just as you're breaking down magic numbers and postseason scenarios at the end of the season.

But no one really ever truly controls their destiny, do they, Meg? We're all just kind of being buffeted by the winds of fortune and fate and randomness. And that is particularly true in the postseason and in baseball, just as a sport, nobody controls their own destiny. So I'm not saying quesar, asura, you should try to have some agency and do what you can to affect your fate. But it's like the baseball's saying,

the other guy lives in a big house too, or the other guy drives in a big car too, or whatever. When you lose, it's not necessarily because you fumbled, it's because the other team is good and sometimes they're better than you and you don't control that necessarily. And sometimes the ball bounces a certain way or someone gets hurt and it's entirely outside of your control or at least partially outside of your control. So nowadays, whenever I hear that a particular team controls its own destiny, I think, not really.

It'd be nice to think that. It's great to think that we have free will and that we can control the world around us and our circumstances, but we're all really just at the mercy of factors outside our control. Even if you beat your division rifle a bunch of times, you can still technically qualify for the postseason. Yeah. I mean, I think that what people, I don't have to explain to you what people actually mean by that because you're like not a dope and you know what it means, but you know,

having more direct say, I think is what people are on about there. Or like, it's so funny because it's like, if we assert that there is some control, right? If you fumble the bag four days before the end of the postseason, well, you still controlled your own destiny to a degree, right? To the same degree that you do if you have a chance on the last day and you have to, what you do affects, it's just a matter of sequencing when it's all said and done, really. Yeah. It's like on the last day of the regular season, the Braves and the Mets controlled their own destiny. The dining backs didn't. That's the difference. They had to just wait

and see what would happen. They had to sit at Chase Field with a suitcase and figure it out. Yeah. Right. So it does capture something real. And yet every time I hear it, I say, yeah, I wish. I wish sometimes that we could control our own destiny, but sometimes it's outside of our control, even if we're playing in that particular game. Which brings me to my last point about the broadcast.

So I know we've talked maybe multiple times at length about win expectancy, win probability on baseball broadcasts and that's not a brand new thing. And obviously it's on apps and it's on fan graphs.com and it's many other places that are easily accessible. But I think a lot of people are being confronted by it now for the first time as kind of a constant thing because ESPN has had a wind probability bug, a graphic. It's just on the Chiron permanently throughout the game.

And some people have responded to that negatively. So I got a message from my friend, Will, who's a big baseball fan, Mets fan. He's probably skews a bit older school than I do. And so sometimes we have healthy debates about cyber metrics related stuff. And sometimes he makes fine points, but we don't always agree about that stuff. So he sent me a message while watching Mets

Brewers and said that the wind probability graphic is so amazingly stupid and hurts my enjoyment of the game. I said, okay, so what's your gripe? And he said, well, number one, it's not very accurate. Now I did follow up and ask him what he meant by that or what he was basing that on. He said, it also doesn't refresh by what the count is,

which is pretty stupid. Okay, it's true that it doesn't update based on the count, although really I don't know that you can responsibly do that because there's just not enough data, as many games as there are, if you get that granular and drill down to the count level. Because when expectancy, it's based on all the previous games or some number of previous games and okay, when a team was in this base out inning score situation, how often did it come back to win? So if you start talking about counts, in addition to that, then it's going to

enter small sample territory sometimes. And you might get in trouble. You might get some in venue-esque looking results, but putting that aside, he said, more importantly, why would you want to know the odds that your team is going to win? Then he went on to say, I mean, this is all probably for ESPN bet so they can control the action coming in, which I know is a popular theory that you put this on the screen

to try to drum up interest in sports betting. But he said, I don't wanna watch a baseball game and be told, oh, one team has a 32% chance of winning. Part of the fun of watching sports is you get to make that assessment for yourself. It feels like a spoiler alert. Lead off single. Hey, don't get too excited. Still only a 43% chance of winning. Right. Now as for the inaccuracy, I asked him why he thinks it's inaccurate. He said,

you know, aside from the count stuff, it's not probably accounting for a lot of specific information in that game on that day, which I assume is true. I don't actually know how they are deriving this, but if it's anything like the typical win probability on baseball reference or fan crafts or wherever, it's a generic thing. It's not taking into account the particular teams, the players, the matchup is the bullpen, tired, a zillion things, right?

And you probably wouldn't want to take into account all of those things because again, you might end up in in venue territory where you're overfitting based on stuff that actually isn't meaningful. But it is meaningful to say, well, this player is, this guy is pitching and this guy is hitting and they're not just league average pitcher and league average starter and it's a pitcher's park or whatever else, right? With the temperature is this. I mean, there are factors that deviate significantly meaningfully from just those overall averages. It's a good guide, a handy kind of rule of thumb to check, okay, how optimistic or pessimistic should I be feeling here? And in the past, I think at first I was in favor of this.

And then later I was more measured and maybe we don't need this or maybe you get it and you find out you don't really want it. But as I was watching, I did find that a little bit distracting too, not as distracting as the flickering Robert Suarez, but my eyes kept flicking over to say, okay, this thing happened. How's the number going to go up or down? And the thing is like, you always know which direction it's going to move. If the system works well, if it's properly calibrated, it's not really a surprise

whether this team's chances got better or worse. And so I like this as not an analytical tool, really, but a storytelling tool. Right. After the fact, it's handy for analysts and writers, and it kind of captures the game state and how it felt at the time. But yeah, I don't know that actually having it on the screen at all times enhances anything for me. Yeah. And maybe it is just that, well, we know we have a good gut sense of what the odds are, because we've just watched a lot of baseball games. And if you're tuning

in for the first time to a postseason baseball game and you say, Hey, I want to check this out. Maybe it would be useful to know that and to be able to ground yourself and say, okay, why is this? And maybe it would prompt greater thinking and understanding of the game. And you could keep your expectations and hopes in check. And I always think also, if you come back when you weren't favored to win, well, then it helps you kind of quantify

how improbable it was. And there's something fun about that too, that you can say, oh, this was a one in a hundred thing and it happened. But yeah, actually seeing it in real time constantly, not sort of highlighting massive changes or something that might be kind of interesting, but just seeing it as sort of a steady state that is just updating after each plate appearance, not sure it actually makes the broadcast better for me.

Yeah. I don't know that it needs to be a persistent thing. I think that having the capacity to like throw up an interesting win probability graph in the midst of, you know, coming back from break after a half inning that really moved the needle, like that might be interesting and I'm sure is well within the sort of production capacity of an ESPN, right? But having it sit there for every single moment of the game, I don't know that I find necessary. But I also will say, Ben, I never notice it being there. Because I think that particularly with their score bug these days being in the upper left corner, I just don't, I don't notice it there at all. I don't engage. So, you know, makes no nevermind to me, but I can appreciate how it would be distracting. And I think you're

right that particularly if that's not a lens through which you're used to thinking about the game, it might be more distracting than it is informative because you're like, what does this really mean? And how are they deriving those numbers? And what do they take into account? What about this specific situation versus not? And so I'd be fine getting rid of it and then just having it be a fact that is deployed in the midst of the broadcast,

just like a hitter sprint speed, or how much induced vertical break a guy is getting on a pitch. It can be part of the arsenal, but it doesn't need to be something that's sitting up there like the count or the pitch type. I just don't think that it's strictly necessary. Yeah. So I wonder whether that will become a staple of baseball broadcasts or whether this is

something that we'll look back on and say, oh, that was something they tried for a while, but it didn't stick. And I'm all for experimenting on baseball broadcasts. Yeah, that's fine. All the other stuff that's standard now and the pitch speeds and everything, I wonder whether this is a bellwether or whether it will be a blip. And ultimately they'll decide this isn't worth the people who don't like it. It's not really adding enough.

And we'll be able to look back at highlights and we'll say, oh, that must've been 2024 because they had the win expectancy graphic on the screen at all times, the way that we could look back at empty stadiums from 2020 and say, oh yeah, that's 2020. There are no fans in the crowd or maybe, oh, the pants are transparent, must be 2024. We'll get to that too.

I have been so chill, you know, in the last couple of days. I just want to point that out. Can I put an idea out there just to raise it as something that I would like to contemplate with greater depth in the off season, but which we do not have to spend time contemplating now. So we feel a way about sports betting. Other people feel other ways about sports betting. One thing that sports betting and analytics writ large as sort of a movement have in common

is like numbers, you know? They both are, it's a numbers game, both of them numbers based sort of endeavors. And so I would be interested in contemplating with you what impact the proliferation of sports betting will have on sort of the general public's perception of analytics as a concept, because I think that the possibility exists for them to become sort of very deeply intertwined in some folks' brains in a way that I don't consider them to be, but I imagine others will. And so I want to think about that, but I don't want to do it right now, Ben, because we've so much else to get to.

But I have to say it out loud so that we'll remember. And, you know, two months from now when we're like, what the hell are we gonna talk about three times a week? I can be like, oh yeah, remember how we were going to talk about that? So this is my, I'm picking up the cupcake and I'm licking it and claiming it as a topic. Other people can talk about it too, but, you know, probably not the exact same way. Because I licked that cupcake. You don't want to lick that cupcake. I've just licked it, you know.

Yeah. Okay. You've licked that cupcake, you've planted that flag. We should talk about that. And that is interesting because there are people who have become quants in baseball who got into it via sports betting or I guess daily fantasy, which is essentially the same thing. And yeah, it's also interesting because I am deeply interested in numbers about baseball and sports math and sabermetrics and yet I'm entirely apathetic about betting or worse. I mean, I'd be apathetic if I weren't constantly subjected to it, which then pushes me over into actively. Antagonistic, yeah.

Right. Which I guess is because I have studied the data and evidence and concluded that the house always wins and thus there's no need for me to get into this, especially if I don't just naturally enjoy it. But I guess that's the question. Why don't I naturally enjoy it? If I enjoy analyzing other stuff, why wouldn't I try to analyze this? Maybe it's because there are people who are better at that than I am and very few of them are making money and when they are they get limited and cut off unless they evidently pretend to be whales and gambling addicts in which case they can trick the books into not limiting them, which is a particularly dark effect that Bloomberg just documented in a piece the other day. Anyway,

yes, we should talk about that. But when expectancy wise, the biggest swing literally and figuratively in that game came from Manny Machado against Max Fried early on second inning. Machado hit a two run double and that was a swing of 18 points of win probability, according to baseball reference. And ultimately the Padres ended up winning that game, one run game, and that put them ahead, I guess it was three to one at that point. So it was a big blow and there was this controversy.

I don't know if you saw, but I found this fascinating too, because when Manny Machado was on second base after hitting what seemed like it could be this back-breaking double against Max Freed, Orlando Arcia, who's playing shortstop for the Braves, comes over and hugs Machado, just a friendly greeting on the bases. And a lot of Braves fans were big mad about this

because of the situation. Because here's this guy who just had this huge postseason hit potentially ending your team season. And here's Arcia going over and being buddy, buddy and back slapping many, many, yeah. You know, I think that a lot of it was blown out of proportion. I mean, if you, sure, I Twitter searched like Arcia and Machado and people were upset. Like there are a lot of tweets and angry Atlanta fans. And then there are a lot of people saying grow up. Like what are you talking about?

Like this is, this is healthy. This is a sport, this is a game, it's a competition. That doesn't mean you can't show some sign of a tribute to a fellow player. They're all peers. We don't have to pretend that they all hate each other, et cetera. And there was a post about this in the Effectively Wild Facebook group, which I thought went in a lot of interesting directions because I thought it was a pretty moderate post where listener Craig or member Craig posted, if this is an okay boomer moment, please let me know. But I think hugging an opposing player after he just hit a backbreaking two run double against your team in an elimination game seems like crossing the line. Am I wrong? And a lot of

people said, yes, you're wrong. And then a lot of people said, you know, no, I'm kind of with you on this. And to some extent, I kind of get it because I don't think that they should actually bear each other ill will or that there should be real animosity here. I'm not expecting them to be at each other's throats or anything.

And yet there's a part of me, the former fan part of me, that when you're watching these games and you're kind of living and dying with every pitch, and I guess we could talk about whether that's a healthy thing to do, but that's how fandom works a lot of the time, right? And I feel like there's kind of like a, a keeping kayfabe aspect to this, to tie it to wrestling where there's a feud going on on screen. You kind of want to believe that it's real. Now, you know, it's not. And you know that these guys might be buds off screen as soon as they cut this

promo, right? But you want them to sort of stay in character while you're watching this entertainment. And I think there's part of me that thinks that, that like, not that you have to be mad at the other guy or anything, or like, glowering or trying to like, make it look like you're, you know, like deadly enemies or anything,

but also, I don't know, maybe like save it till after the game or something to hug the guy to fraternize like that. Aren't there like rules there have been rules against like players fraternizing on the field? It's still in the rule book. It is, right? Yeah. Yeah. But that was like an anti-union, anti-organization motivated thing. Yeah. These guys are union mates, right? They're all in the same union. They're all in this fraternity of Major League Baseball players.

I totally get why they all get along and they're in the league and they see each other all the time and obviously. But in this moment, I don't know, I just feel like maybe don't demonstratively do that because your fans who are watching at home and are sports mad at Manny Machado, right? Like, I mean, you know, he's just doing his best and he's just trying to get the big hit just like your guys are trying to do to them. But in that moment, you're kind of cursing his name.

Like, damn it. And so I could imagine that it might be a little deflating to see like one of your guys, you know? Sports is tribal and often that goes in dark directions. And so this is like healthy in some ways, you know? They're not kissing only if they want to. And if they want a hug, then maybe that's good, right? This is a good vision of masculinity

at this high level of high stakes competition. And yet I do sort of sympathize with the less like, they should cut this guy, they should bench him, they should get rid of him. Not that kind of like sports take nonsense, but I get it on some level. I do sort of sympathize. I think so many things, Ben. I can understand Atlanta fans in this moment just having a feeling of upset, you know, a generalized upset because you're coming down from this big emotional thing where you storm into the playoffs despite being hurt and not winning the division in a year that you thought you were going to dominate. You've had that big emotional catharsis and then your ace

is out and he's not going to be able to pitch in this round and you just don't know what to do with yourself. In some ways, you are overstimulated emotionally. You're like a toddler who has had so much sugar that you are wound up, but you are in fact exhausted and would do better, worry you to go to bed, right? You have all this feeling and now your team is facing down elimination, you're losing early, you know, and you just have a feeling of upset. And you gotta put that upset somewhere. And for whatever reason, you're not inclined to put it mostly at the guy who just scored runs

for your opposition, which is like the easiest emotional out here is just be mad at Manny Machado, you know? Yeah. I'm sure there's plenty of that too, but also it's like, okay, you accept that he's going to do that, he's trying to do that, your opponents, your competitors, but maybe it feels more like a betrayal when someone on your side is not showing the appropriate level of upset. Because if you're a fan, you want to feel like the players are equally upset. And sometimes they are, but sometimes they aren't because it's a job for them

and they've won and lost a lot of games and they can kind of take that in stride. It differs by the team and by the player obviously, but you could take more of a philosophical, well, they got us this time, we got them last time, we'll get them next time kind of stance. But when you're a fan and when you're feeling that deep investment, I think you want that to be mirrored by the guys on your

side, even if it's not really, you might just say like, okay, maybe, maybe not at the other guy. Maybe, maybe a subtle hand gesture or something, but, but a full on hug in the frame. Maybe that, that goes too far. This is you've crossed a line. I mean, I think it's funny that like Atlanta fans, because wasn't it Arcia who stirred up a kerfuffle with the Phillies last year? That's right. Am I remembering my postseason?

The Jake Mintz, Bryce Harper incident. Mythos correctly. Yeah. And so, you know, one option that Atlanta fans could pursue would be being pleased that he has decided to go in a different direction and not stir up, excuse me, I swear, s*** with the other team. So, you know, maybe that's it, but maybe you like that in your guy. Look, I don't think that you can be faulted for feeling a way because again, you're just mired in this generalized upset. But I also think that it's useful to remember that these guys have the weirdest job.

They have such a strange occupation. And I have had, especially with the Olympics this year, like had occasion to think a lot about how much camaraderie there seems to be between athletes at that level. And that isn't to say that if they don't have camaraderie, they're somehow lacking. You're not obligated. But I understand the instinct because who else really understands what it feels like to do that job? Like, it's such a small group relative to the general population. And so, I think having a feeling of connection even in a moment where like the other guy is getting you and it might send you home is understandable. I also think that, you know, it's useful to keep the context of that moment within the game in mind because

this happened pretty early in the game, right? Yep. Yep. Second to me. This happened pretty early in the game, right? Yep, second in the game. Yeah, so part of me thinks that if it had been close and late, the gesture would have been different, right? But if you're Orlando Arsia and you have the confidence of a pro athlete, part of you is probably thinking, we have time to get him. You know, we have time to get him. And so maybe he's just so... Also, I think it's useful to remember you probably just didn't think about it that much at all. You know? Yeah, probably. You know,

I don't know what their relationship is to each other. If they have like a close friendship, if they train together, I don't know. I don't know if he and Machado are buds or if this was just, I have respect for this like future hall of famer who's doing good stuff for his team. You know, I don't know. Maybe he's like, it's about time that there was a new franchise home run leader. And I simply must give him recognition for having cleared this previously un-clearable bar. We don't know. But I bet he just didn't think about it very much at all. Cause you know what? Ultimately, it doesn't very much matter, you know? And he has to do something else with his feeling of upset.

He can't give in to that feeling of upset at that juncture because he's got another seven innings of baseball to play. So he's got to do something with it and maybe he's just like, it's my buddy Mamie. You know? Yeah. And to the extent that this becomes co-opted into like sports are too soft, athletes are too soft now, like they have to maintain this killer edge. I think that's all silly. I'm just talking about the spectator experience. And the other thing that I wonder is how does Max Fried feel about that? If he feels anything, if he even noticed,

but you know he's gotta be feeling bad about the fact that he's given up three runs in this inning. He was about to give up a couple more. And I could imagine that if you just gave up this big hit and you turned around and the guy who's got your back, who's like literally playing behind you, counting on to do defense for you is fraternizing with the enemy, quote unquote,

and back slapping and everything. And Fried was facing more or less that direction. I don't know, he was like looking down, it seems like, as they really embraced. But I could imagine that seems like as they really embraced. But I could imagine that not really resonating with some teammates or a pitcher, if you just gave up that big hit, maybe you wouldn't want that player to be greeted in sort of a celebratory way at second base by your ally, your teammate.

Who knows, it's probably not a big deal ever, at least in this instance, but I could imagine someone looking at skins at that at some point. And maybe Braves fans are just mad because Orlando RC had a 72 WRC plus this season and they're just not inclined to be charitable to him at this point. I don't think that what I'm about to say is unique to fans of the Atlanta Braves, so I don't want anyone to get it twisted, but I don't know that it takes a whole lot to get Braves fans upset about a thing. This is also just a time of year where, you know, the stakes are so high that we maybe

come to fixate on things that would sort of roll off our backs in different circumstances. I think that players greeting each other in a friendly way on the base paths is like pretty common. I think that it happens a lot like it in a way that I have remarked upon at several points this postseason and it's so nice when they do that, you know, or like I like it when I don't like it when hitters get hit by a pitch to be clear, but like I like it when like a hitter gets hit by a pitch and you have this moment where like, it normally occurs when the injury isn't pronounced or anything, but they'll have this moment where they will like go, I know

you didn't mean to do that. And the pitcher will go, I didn't mean to do that. It's so nice. It's just like, whoops-a-doo. And then everyone can move on. It's like these moments of you're taking the sting out of a situation that has the potential to escalate and deciding, we're not going to do that today. That's not how we're going to understand our relationship to each other. I like it when they do that. It's nice. But again, if you sat there and you go, no, I don't, my feeling about this would be very different, for instance, if my stupid Seattle Mariners, one game, Ben, they, I, powerful witch. For what purpose? We still don't know. But like, if I were watching,

say the Seattle Mariners playing, say, the Houston Astros, and they were all like chummy with each other, I might go, I don't care for that at all. I don't know. So again, I'm not trying to, I'm not, everyone seems like they're doing fine because nobody's being weird about it in any direction, but I'm just inviting everyone to consider that what if you looked at it and thought, oh, that's nice, then you don't have to be upset about that. Jared Sussman It's a nice corrective to the way things used to be, or at least the perception of the way things used to be, where it was always about not showing any kind of affection for anyone or anything on the field. And if you hit someone as a pitcher, you have to stay stone-faced for intimidation purposes. Yeah, it's all sort

of silly. So I guess, speaking of you being a powerful witch, I believe one of your other bold preseason predictions was that the Orioles would make the postseason but would be swept in their first postseason series. Is that one of the things I predicted? Yeah, that also came to pass. Yeah, it did come to pass. I'm sorry, Orioles fans. So you used the toddler sugar consumption analogy a second ago, which I also did in a piece that I wrote this week about how there's really no such thing as an upset in these MLB playoffs relative to recent post-seasons, because the difference

in team quality is relatively small. Whether you go by wins, expected wins, the difference between the best team and the worst team. It's all about the smallest gaps that we've seen between the top and bottom of the field in about a decade. You have to go back to like the 2014, you know, pre-super team era when we saw just such a kind of compressed field. And this is something we talked about pre-season, during the season, we could foretell that this would happen, that there just aren't any super

teams, et cetera, right? So it just feels like every series is winnable in a way that it doesn't usually feel like that even though it is like that, right? And so I thought whoever wins or loses these series, I think we'll see a little less hand ringing about the playoff format and are we doing October baseball right than we've seen in the last couple of post seasons, just because no one who could get knocked out at this point. And we've seen some favorites lose already, and yet it doesn't feel like it felt the last couple of years where you had a hundred plus win teams getting knocked out immediately by wild card teams, and it just felt too abrupt.

But I did make that analogy and others like it in my piece where I said it is kind of a sugar rush, a guilty pleasure, this portion of the postseason, where we can't look away. It's riveting to have what we had before, which was single elimination games for a while starting in 2012 when wild cards started facing each other.

And now best of threes, which is only slightly more telling of team talent than a single elimination. Every pitch counts and feels like it matters and you can't help but tune in and you're just riveted to everything. And then when it's over, you think, oh gosh, like this doesn't feel like baseball is supposed to work this way. Like we played 162 games to get to that point. And I'm certainly still seeing that sentiment. Maybe it's less about like David beat Goliath or this Titan got toppled, but it does just feel almost premature.

It's just like, gosh, you only got to play two games. We've also seen a ton of sweeps in this current playoff format. I guess this Mets Brewers series that's gone to game three is the first non-sweep that we've had under this format. We also see a lot of low scoring games in this round, maybe because teams just bullpen it or sometimes they have an ace lined up to go. And so we get a lot of one run games that feel like they hinge on one play

and game of inches and everything could have been different. And then suddenly one team advances and one team goes home. And I guess I've kind of come to terms with it and made my peace with it and said, well, this is entertainment and I am entertained. Another expression I used in my article was like post dogpile clarity, where you're like caught up in the moment. Yes, I also called it a baseball bacchanal. You know, it's like you're just in it. You're like on this binge of baseball, these like four game frenzies, back-to-back

days and you can't get enough and you're just like mainlining this stuff. And then you come down from that high and suddenly a bunch of teams that you've been watching all season are gone already. And you're like, oh, well, that almost doesn't feel fair, but this is the bargain that baseball has struck. Oh, you said so much. Now I keep thinking about how do I feel better about having said that they can kiss but only if they want to or does that have a different cast now? Well, I'm so glad that you feel like people have calmed the hell down about the format because that doesn't reflect what I have seen online.

CB Yeah, there's still plenty of people upset about stuff of that stuff. Oh boy, grousing to the extreme. And I, look, I don't want to dismiss all of that grousing out of hand because I do think that it's worth examining sort of what we understand the goal of the playoffs to be and whether the current format is sort of working in service of those goals or at counter purposes. But I just don't think about the playoffs as being particularly reflective of the regular season to begin with. And so alterations within that, I think I have a lot more tolerance for than some do. And I

don't mean that like I have some special like moral clarity around it or anything, but just that it's like, well, yeah, the postseason is different. Of course it is. It's always been different. At least, you know, as we've kind of moved into the division and expansion era and have something resembling the wild card era, especially having something resembling a postseason like this, it's like, yeah, it's different, you know? You know what's even less reflective of team strength potentially than a three game series, a one game wild card, you know. And so I find myself sort of unperturbed by that piece of it.

It'll be interesting to see sort of how the divisional round plays out because as much sort of consternation as there is about the wild card round and whether it inspires teams to really go for it or just hang around in the 85 win range and see if they can sneak in. The discourse that has seemed the most sort of magmatic around this playoff format is the does having a break help or hinder you. And, you know, we've largely agreed that like getting rest and being able to set your rotation in whatever order you think is best is, you know, over a long enough sample probably going to accrue to people's benefit. But we will see, you know, if, if the Dodgers get swept out, if the Yankees get swept out, I think that

we're going to see another round of discourse, my very favorite thing. But yeah, like, I think that there were plenty of people who looked at the three series that have already concluded and felt a little uncomfortable with the notion that like a team that sold at the deadline was able to knock off the Astros. But I also think that a lot of people don't like the Astros and are pretty bored of seeing them in the ALCS. And so they're like, whatever, you know, let's go. Let's see, let's see this, this young sort of still coming into itself Tigers team and see what we can do, you know, and, and see what they're able to muster. I will say, if I were going to

offer any expression of like, eh, a lot of AL Central in this postseason now, Ben. Just like, there's so much of the AL Central in this field. Good God. But, you know, you look at the NL field in particular and it's like the Dodgers for all their injuries, like really good team, most wins in baseball this year, home field advantage throughout the playoffs, spent a bunch of money. They await a Padres team that yes, did cut payroll, but is not like a low payroll team by any stretch, right? And is very good and worked to get better at the deadline, traded for Cs, reinforced their bullpen, has all of these position player guys who are super impressive. You have a Phillies team where their owner is just like out here every

day reminding his fellow owners that owning a baseball team is a civic responsibility and that you should invest in it and try to win a World Series. So I think there's plenty to counterbalance the central of it all, right? We're kind of burying the lead here though, which is that the Astros and the Orioles are not advancing and no one could guess how I feel about one of those things more than the other. But did it surprise you that the Orioles fell not because they didn't pitch well, but because they seemingly forgot how to hit a baseball.

A little bit. That surprised me. I was a little surprised by that. I was like, oh, that wasn't how I expected that to play. To the extent that I could be surprised by anything that happens in two games. And obviously- We're just too reasonable, Ben. We got to work ourselves into some takes.

Yes. Well, I tried there with my Arcia Machado and the flickering Suarez and I'm trying to get exercised here, doing my best. And then you wrote a thing about it, but then you got too invested in making a horny joke and then you forgot to get mad. You got horny instead. Yeah. My God.

The Orioles have been struggling for a while with injuries and other weaknesses of the roster getting exposed. And I know Orioles fans are frustrated because they've lost their last 10 postseason games. Every right to feel frustrated. Oh, of course. It's frustrating. Yeah.

The offense has not shown up the last couple postseason. So you have this super promising team and they get good again and you have this talented core and the window is open and all of that is absolutely true. But then there are also the ongoing questions about, well, will they make the moves that they have to make to put this team over the top? And you could have made a bunch of moves and they still might just have gone quiet for a couple of days and gotten knocked out of the postseason. And again, that was a case where like Jordan Westberg makes this decision to throw to first and Bobby Witt Jr. is very fast and I don't know why Westberg makes this decision to throw to first and Bobby Witt

Jr. is very fast and I don't know why Westberg went to first instead of flipping to second, which seemed like a more makeable play. And then Witt beats out this infield grounder and then the Royals win and that's the game. And these games just can go one way or another based on little moments, little decisions, slight missteps like that. And it could be a misjudgment on Westberg's part. And then it's also Bobby Wood Jr. being really freaking fast. So fast, dude. Just like, wow. So he earns that too in addition to everything else he's good at. But these are the things

that decide seasons and then decide the perception of a season in an era where postseason success dictates how fans feel about their team. Now, I know that Michael Elias came out and said subsequently that he's pretty confident that payroll will be going up. I would hope so. And we'll see now that David Rubenstein is in charge of this team and the payroll. And I think everyone's waiting for Elias. They have prominent free agents like Corbin Burns and Anthony Santander. And so will he deal from the depth? Will he go get a bigger middle of the order bet? Will guys just be healthier and will Adly Rutchman just look like Adly Rutchman again? Yeah, dude. He looks so compromised. It was really a bummer to watch.

I was like, that guy's not right. He's really not right. And can they assemble an entire pitching staff without relying on a bunch of guys who are coming back from arm injury? So they have a lot of work to do and hopefully they will do that work and that this will be an impetus for them to do it because they can't just sit back and rest on their laurels because they have this young core. That's a reason to supplement it and to go spend some money and go get some support for

these guys. So I expect that they will to some extent, will they to the extent that they should or that Orioles fans hope they will, who knows, but it's a new administration. So they have the chance to change the narrative about that team. And yeah, Orioles gone, Astros gone, Braves gone, Astros first Astros list ALCS since literally 2016. It's unbelievable. And the Braves now, obviously this is not the Braves that we've seen for the past few years. And that was another point I made in my piece that even the perennial postseason teams that were here were not their peak selves.

These were not the best version of the Astros that we've seen. This was not the best version of the Braves. This is not the best version of the Dodgers. They've all struggled to get here more so than they have in many past seasons. And so they have like the brand, the name recognition, but under the hood, it's not quite the caliber of team there. And the Braves, I guess it's almost appropriate that their season ended the way that it did with Chris Sale being unavailable. I mean, what a wild end to the season. What an unbelievable Monday,

as we were podcasting about the White Sox, that first game and then finding out post first game that Chris Sale couldn't go and wasn't going to make the start to save Atlanta season. And then they get in anyway and still can't go with the back spasms. And we talked about this last time, right? That he, or two times ago, that he has this history of wearing down even when he has a healthy season by the time October rolls around. he's not usually himself by that point. And that's the case here. And so you've got to press a youngster into service and it just doesn't go well, which I guess is kind of

like the most fitting way for this injury plagued Atlanta season to end. It's a testament to them that they got there at all without Acuna, without Strider for almost the entire season and Riley and everyone else who missed a ton of time. And then sale was a big part of why they got there and then they get there and he can't go. And that's a sad sort of coda to what will probably be a Cy Young winning season, I would imagine and is a deserved victory. Although honestly, Zach Wheeler pretty close,. He should be more in the conversation, I think, even if he doesn't end up winning. But yeah,

it was a very 2024 Braves-y way to go out, I guess. And the Padres are a formidable team. The Phillies are formidable. These are not powerhouses. They're not juggernauts. They're not unstoppable. They've got vulnerabilities, but these are good teams. And even though we've got a 75% AL Central American League bracket at this point, that doesn't actually detract from my enjoyment of this at all.

Sure. Because when I was writing, I listed some of my favorite postseason storylines, like the fact that we don't have super teams here, arguably makes it better or more entertaining in my mind. And it's a refreshing change. And so the things that I'm most excited about seeing, okay, Shohi Otani's first trip to the MLB playoffs,

the full phenom lineup of the Jackson four. And of course, Holliday knocked out already, but we've seen trio have his breakout star moment. Like he's unbelievable, right? And a special game for that guy. Wow. Yeah. And Merrill has made major contributions to, and the Tigers depending on Job. So you've got all the Jacksons and then you've got the Yankees murderers duo of the best batting teammates since Ruth and Garragh and Judge and Soto. And you had all of these excellent short stops who could be contending for an

MVP, if not for Otani and Judge, Bobby Witt Jr. and Gunnar Henderson is out now and Francisco Indoor. And then on a team level, I'm into the Phillies transformation from the nobody believed in us upstarts, who sort of just squeaked into the playoffs to now they're the grizzled old hands of October and they're better than they were when they made those deep prior runs. And I'm really into the Royals and Tigers because yeah, we know that they're not great teams, but the paths they took to get here. If you can make that philosophical flip, that switch in your head that you

said, where you don't say it's really representative of what happened during the regular season. Well, for Kansas city to have a 30 game year over year improvement to rebound from a hundred six loss low, which has never happened before to make the playoffs after that sort of season. And then Detroit to have this unprecedented, you know, torrid run or racing a 10 game wildcard deficit on August 10th after trading guys away at the deadline. That's pretty compelling stuff. This is Cinderella runs, this is team of

destiny. I'm into it. And we haven't seen these teams in the playoffs for a while. So it's a nice change of pace and face. And then you've got the Padres and the Brewers going for their first championships and the Guardians trying to snap their drought. And the poor Yankees trying to avoid a 15th straight season without a pennant, which would be their longest drought since they won their first one in 1921. I made a crack in my article about, you know, the guardians made a world series much more recently than the Yankees.

So I'm sure their fans are feeling for the Yankees fan base, just having to go so long without tasting the fall classic. But this is a lot of stuff that I am pretty into. So even if the team quality is not what we're accustomed to seeing in recent post-seasons, just the narratives are excellent. They more than make up for that in my mind. I think that it's a fun field. I think having new faces, both in terms of like the actual players and in terms of teams that we haven't seen in a while, making a run and making their presence felt is very exciting. All of the Jacksons, it's so great.

I mean, I hope that things go better for Job than they did in his one outing, but guess what? His offense bailed him out. Didn't matter, Ben. Didn't end up mattering. But yeah, like being able to watch sort of both Jackson, Maryland, Jackson, Cheerios sort of become stars in real time is like incredible. And to have it be so impactful this early is like really special. And that's all great. I want to say out loud so that it is somewhere in the official record of Effectively Wild.

I think Zach Wheeler has taken over the top spot now that Garrett Cole has won a Cy Young. Zach Wheeler is officially my, I can't believe that guy doesn't get more Cy Young consideration like leader in the clubhouse. So I just want to put that out into the universe. And of course, sales never won one, right? So he might get off that board here, but he'll be immediately replaced by Wheeler. If he does. But it's not only has he not won one, but like hasn't really done particularly well in the voting even in a way that is kind of surprising. So I just want to say that so that at some point

when people are like, no one ever appreciates Zach Wheeler, I can go, yeah, I don't know. It's a fun field. And I think that having it mixed up a little bit from what we've seen in prior years, it's like a really good balance for me of teams that we haven't seen in a while and teams that can be sort of the standard bearers of the powerhouses and that's exciting and fun. It's a good mix, you know? And since it doesn't feature the Mariners, I don't have to feel super stressed about it. So in that respect, I was texting with one of my buddies from grad school who's a Tigers fan and he's like, yeah, I forgot how much this sucks out loud.

He's very excited and he's having a great time, but he's like, oh, good. And it's like, yeah, bud, that's what that is. I don't have a ton of experience with it, but what you're describing is consistent with the limited experience that I have. So AJ Hinch's, Tarek's Google and pitching chaos the rest of the way, that plan is working fairly well so far. And since we talked about the Orioles offensive outage, have to hand it to the Royals too, who obviously they come in not just with Reagan's and Lugo, but also the bullpen. Now, when we broke down our strengths and weaknesses of post-season teams last week, we noted that the bullpen has been a

weakness for the Royals and it has on a full season level. But we also noted that they have rebuilt that bullpen on the fly. Yeah. And maybe I underrated it because they had one of the best bullpens in September. Now, as I said, you can get yourself into trouble when you drill down too much and you say, well, do you look at the full season stats or do you start slicing and dicing and looking at ever finer splits? And the Royals bullpen was fourth by Fangrass War in September. It was second by FIP or adjusted FIP behind only the Brewers. And it's different guys than the guys who were in that pen early in that season. That's

also sort of a small sample, but they showed out here with, I think it was seven and two thirds scoreless. So I don't know if Lucas or Sykes arm is just going to fall off at some point or what, but they have a rebuilt pen. I don't know that we can say it's definitively a strength, but I think it's certainly gone from being a liability to being something that won't hold them back. The offense, now that's an issue, but if they can throw Regans and Lugo and Waka at you and then back it up with actually a good bullpen. Right.

You know, that's sort of scary, right? So they could win those close games. Yeah, because you know, Witt is fantastic. We saw, I mean, I don't think that we've seen like a fully re-actualized Vinnie Pasquantino yet, but like we've seen what can happen if you can keep runs off the board and those guys can kind of get going like, man, you got a little bit of something brewing there. I don't know that I look at the field or even just the AL field and suddenly think, oh gosh, the Royals, my favorite.

I think I expect an NL team to win the World Series as part of what I'm realizing as we work our way through here. But it's pretty fascinating. I like that we're getting division rivals in the division round. I'm a big fan of that. I think that you want a division round that isn't going to have a friendly pat on the back after a double. You just got to get these guys involved. Maybe not the central teams. They do live in the Midwest, so they might be passive aggressive, but polite to each other at second base. Who could say?

Yeah, I suppose we will see. Will Miguel Rojas make the mistake of patting Mini Machado on the back in this NLDS? By the way, I meant to say this earlier, but we wanted to tease the live streams that we're doing for Patreon supporters. And that is the first one we're doing. So we do two playoff live streams every postseason for Patreon supporters at the Ned Garvert

tier or above, where we just hang out and chat between ourselves and among our friends who we bring in. Yeah, we've got some friends. Yeah, it's just like a live watch along. Yeah. Yeah, and we do it in the Patreon Discord group and people can chat with us and with each other and it's just a fun time.

So we're doing the first of two this Saturday, NLDS Game One, Padres Dodgers, all the drama, all the storylines, all the history. And that's at 838 Eastern, 538 Pacific, and we'll be talking. So if you are interested in joining us for that, then you still can. You just gotta sign up or upgrade to that tier and you get a couple of live streams and that'll be the first one. And we will send out all the information, but you just have to join the Discord group, which is a great place to be anyway.

So we hope some people will do that. And hopefully my power will not crap out in the final innings of a game like it did last year. Yes, we also teased that on our new bonus episode, which was just released, our bonus episode for September, the 35th that is available. If you sign up for Patreon you can access those immediately. Okay, there's our little Patreon plug. We hope people will join us for the live

streams because the more the merrier. Meant to mention though that Monday double header. So there was a lot of intrigue about what will happen in the second game when one team is already in and will they just roll over and nothing really out of the ordinary happened. It's pretty common for teams not to have anything at stake and yeah, they don't start their best guys and they rest some guys and you know, that's pretty much it. Like there's, you know, people are talking about like, yeah, right. Like they should just both forfeit and then they'll both get it. Yeah. Like sure, but also that would never happen. Also, don't you think that even if those two clubs had decided that that's what they were

going to do, that the league would have intervened? I feel like the commissioner's office would have been like, no, knock it off. You're not doing that. That would have been a best interest at baseball sort of situation. Yes. I don't think they would have gotten away with that, even if they had tried, but I don't even think that they would have tried. So that was just an incredibly compelling first game as we were podcasting about the white stocks or so I hear, I mean, we were following it. I couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe we were doing it. I still can't believe it.

When we made the plans to do that, when we scheduled that, we did not know about that and we, the plans to do that, when we scheduled that, we did not know about that and we wanted to do that and in theory that was the best time to do it because hey, we'll get this out of the way before the postseason starts. But yeah, it was quite the timing on our part. So you had this incredible back and forth game with one of these just legendary win expectancy graphs that you would want to put on a poster probably, or you would if you were a Mets fan, maybe not if you were a Braves fan, though they got in anyway. It's funny, last year

the story about the Braves was, oh, they're rusty, they had too much rest. And this year they had no rest whatsoever. And it didn't work out either way, I guess, for them. Maybe if they'd had more rest, Chrisel could have started, who knows? But yeah, you never know. But that game was unbelievable and the back and forth nature of it and Lindor's home run. And I was struck by Edwin Diaz just demanding to come back out for the ninth. Cause this is the sort of thing that players and teams can get themselves in trouble with this at times.

And you don't have to look any further than the New York Mets to come up with a not too distant example of this happening. So, Diaz comes in in the eighth and relieves Phil Meton, and this is Monday, and he had pitched Sunday and the Mets were careful with Diaz all season long and didn't use him on back to back to belly days and didn't throw him too much in any given game. You could say, well, he wasn't conditioned to do this, or you could say, well, they just took it easy on him all season so that he'd have more gas left in the tank when the moment really mattered. So he comes back out having thrown a bunch of pitches on Sunday, comes back out Monday and gives up a few runs, right? Like big hits, big runs. And it

looks like the Braves are going to pull this thing out and maybe Diaz is going to take the L here. And then Lindor hits the huge two run homer to retake the lead in the top of the ninth. And Diaz demands to come back out again. And this is one of those like legendary big boy moments when it works, right? It's like playoff legends are made of this sort of thing. And so they were planning to take him out, right? Mets manager, Carlos Mendoza, Ryan Stannick was warming and Diaz goes up and says, I'm going back out no matter what. I don't care what you say. I'm going back out.

And Mendoza acquiesces to this. And Diaz had gone to talk to pitching coach Jeremy Hefner and said, am I coming back out? And Hefner said, no. And so Diaz went straight to Mendoza and said, trust in me. I've got this thing. And he let him do it. And for a moment there, it looked like maybe this wouldn't work, but then it worked. And Diaz did give up a one out single to Eli White.

And then White still second to get into scoring position. But then Diaz did finally close it out and got the win and it worked out. And so you think, oh, good that he was trusted in this moment. But of course, I was remembering the last time the Royals were in the playoffs was against the Mets in the 2015 World Series and sort of the exact same situation played out with Matt Harvey. And this is how long ago it was when Matt Harvey was a playoff ace, but the same thing happened. Harvey had had this brilliant eight inning outing and Terry Collins was gonna take him out.

And then Harvey just demanded to stay in. And Collins said, when you looked in this kid's eyes, when he came off that inning, he's been through a tough summer, he's been beaten down and I just trusted him. I said, you got this, you've earned this, So go get him. It's my fault, not his, because he was going to bring in the closer. And Harvey had been great to that point, of course. And he's like, I don't want to give up the ball. It's hard for me to leave in a situation like that. And he told

Harvey Collins said that was enough. And Harvey said, I want this game. I want it bad. You've got to leave me in. And Colin said, Matt, you've got us exactly where we wanted. And Harvey said, I want this game in the worst way. And so Colin said, go get them. And of course it did not work out. It did not work out. The Mets lost that game and that series. And Collins later said, obviously I let my heart get in the way of my gut. So he did regret it on some level and it's all dependent on whether the player comes through and delivers. And so if, if Diaz had blown that lead to that, that would have been bad.

Right? Like Mendoza would have taken some flack for that. Right. I can't believe it. You finally found one. A take. It would have been bad. Yeah. I mean, there would have been blowback. Like Diaz had thrown 50 pitches in about a day at that point with the outing on Sunday. He just like, hasn't been asked to do that very much. And so ultimately he delivered, no harm done, at least in this game. And it's this big playoff moment for him. And he's been great late in the season too. He's been a big part of the Mets playoff push, but whoo boy, like there's a Mets playoff precedent for that sort of like, let me do this. I got this. Because again, you don't control your own destiny. You can say, I got this, let me go get them. And

sometimes the other guy's just going to be better. And then the manager, if they flip flop, especially if like the pitcher was told, okay, that's it for you. And then maybe on some level, there's part of them that's like, okay, I left it all on the field and I used up all my reserves here and now I'm going back out there. It's dangerous. That's, that's a risky business to let even a great closer, even a great starter do that and it can backfire in a big way sometimes, but not this time, fortunately for the Mets. It could have been catastrophic and instead it was great and you can make the best, most reasoned decisions possible.

And then the player, you know, fails to execute and you get guff for that too. I don't envy them their jobs. Like it has to be very frustrating, but worked out this time, I guess. Well, do you have any other playoff related thoughts? I just, I'm struck by just how exciting that day and that doublehead header was particularly the first game. Cause I did feel cheated of tiebreaker games and we fomented the loss of tiebreaker games. And we finally get a meaningful three-way tie

with playoff implications, which was one of my bold preseason predictions that came true. I made that prediction cause the standings did seem set to be so compressed and that did kind of happen and it played out and we didn't get the tiebreakers. But in this particular case, I think Diamondbacks fans may disagree, but I think it worked out to be super entertaining.

It wasn't a tiebreaker, but it felt like a tiebreaker because the Braves and the Mets had the spotlight and the stage to themselves. They were the only team playing that day and we got an all-timer of a game one at least. And so I think the circumstances just worked out perfectly given that we've done away with tiebreakers. I still would prefer tiebreakers to be back, but this was almost like a 2011-esque ending to the season in terms of just how memorable the moments it produced were. Hosted by What advisable was it for them to be playing that day, to be directing resources to that,

although there was like a giant chemical explosion in the greater Atlanta area on Monday. So like, I think that that part still bears scrutiny because we should have good process around this stuff and I think be mindful of that. But yes, in terms of the thrill it gave, thrilling, you know, terrific, wonderful. How good did I find the wild card games? Awesome. Very few notes. Great time. Good fun teams advancing. Young stars coming out big in big spots. 50% of the Jacksons doing great stuff. I am sad that I won't have an opportunity for in-person coverage, but it

does make things a little more straightforward from a scheduling perspective, so that part is good. Am I sufficiently distracted from the chaos of the world around us? You know, that comes and goes, Ben. I think that people should keep playing compelling baseball so that I don't start eating my own hair, but That was gonna be true regretless, you know, I'm gonna be regardless of the teams involved. Yeah Well, you have some hair to spare right? That is true. It's like a truly spectacular amount of it It is starting in a more pronounced and obvious way to go gray, but that's fine. I have a hair take.

Are you ready for my hair take? Okay, so like I want to preface this by saying that the way that our bodies degrade and change as we age, I think disorienting and often troubling for everyone, you know, and it manifests in different ways. So I'm not criticizing the manifestation itself. I have aspects of my own aging that I'm like, whoa, having to deal with that now, cool. But I would just, for people where it's going gray and they feel the need to, it looks cool, you guys. It looks distinguished. It looks learned. It looks cool, you guys. It looks distinguished. It looks learned. It looks like you've lived a life, you know?

You've gotten to experience things and hopefully learn from them. And so, you know, again, the feeling that we all have as we age of things changing and being stabilizing, I think that just everyone deals with it in some respect. It sneaks up on you and then it holds you tight and you can know it's fine or like, no, it's survivable, but still feel like, you know, grief about it almost. And so I don't want to diminish that for anyone. I simply want to offer, I think your hair looks cool, you know, and you don't have to dye it if you don't want to. You look great.

Every one of you, every single one of you don't have to dye it if you don't want to. You look great. Every one of you. Every single one of you. Oh yeah, it can look excellent sometimes. And you're like, why are you thinking of that, Meg? But I'm simply saying that during the playoffs, we get all of these ads. We get ads for off-market illegal loophole dick pills. Apparently, that's an ad we're selling. And some of them are about your hair and it falling out or changing and, you know, all of the stress that can come with

that. And so I just want to offer a word of affirmation. You look great. Yeah. My wife's family goes gray early. And so my wife's got gray and her fraternal twin, sororal twin sister has gone gray too and they've left it for the most part and it's fine. And maybe psychologically it's easier if it happens to you young or I could imagine it being harder because it's more uncommon, but also it's not necessarily a reflection of, oh, I'm getting on in years. It's more just, this is a genetic quirk. Like we go gray early. It doesn't mean I'm old, right? It's not really a reminder of my mortality so much as it is just a distinguishing feature

of our family perhaps. But I have seen plenty of that and I've got a little gray myself. Like you can't see it from afar, but if you get really up close there and scrutinize my temples and sideburns, you can see some gray hairs poking through there. And it hasn't bothered me to this point now when it gets to the point where it's very visible, especially I feel like if you've got the stubble, which I typically have some stubble and that can look good or it can age you, I guess. And you know, I don't necessarily want to be the guy in the Just For Men ads. I don't want to be Keith Hernandez

out here necessarily feeling the pressure to hide that, but I guess we'll see how it feels where it gets to the point that it's not naturally hidden. Anyway, I wish everyone the best with their aging journey and coming to terms with that. I also wanted to say just because as every team gets eliminated, there's kind of like a referendum on what does this mean for that team and how can they regroup and how can they change? And we did a little bit about that just with the Orioles a moment ago. And then you've got like the Braves who are like, well, look, everything went wrong for the Braves this year, They'll come in healthier next year because how

could they not? And probably they'll enter the season as favorites again or like kind of co-favorites in that division, depending on how things go down. Could they maybe anticipate problems and provide greater depth? Perhaps. Maybe they'll learn that lesson. But there's only so much you can do when you lose that many prominent players. And then the Astros, maybe you could wonder, well, they're getting up there in years themselves, there's some gray on that roster and they've got some prominent free agents and maybe the pipeline isn't what it was and they're obviously run differently and they're maybe, is this the end?

Like, is the window still open? Will any AL West teams actually challenge them next year? So you can have those discussions. I think you also have those discussions about these sort of Cinderella teams that you didn't expect to get to this point and they feel almost ahead of schedule, though in the Tigers case, in a way they're behind schedule and ahead of schedule at the same time. It depends on which attempted rebuild you're talking about. But we got that question from a Tigers fan named they're behind schedule and ahead of schedule at the same time. It depends on which attempted rebuild you're talking about. But we got that question from a Tigers fan named Jesse today,

who wrote in to say, needless to say, the last month has been pretty exhilarating. I'm excited to see how far we get, but I have a question about the long-term effects of this end of season boon. Is there any way to calculate how making the postseason after a dry spell could help or hurt our postseason chances in the future? Are teams that make the playoffs more likely to make them again in the future? Maybe there's a morale boost to play or maybe this zoomed out look could account for the cumulative effects of a number of smaller advantages and I said I don't have any particular numbers or research to cite but yeah, if you make the playoffs one year, you're certainly more likely to make them again in the future.

Yeah, if you make the playoffs one year, you're certainly more likely to make them again in the future. Not so much because of a morale boost, though obviously there is one, as because, well, teams that make the playoffs tend to be pretty good, and teams that are pretty good in one year are more likely than your randomly selected team to be pretty good the next year. If you're the Tigers and you're coming out of this extended dry spell and you've improved to the point that you've just managed to scratch and claw your way into the playoffs and you have a fairly young roster that portends some success to come. You're on the right trajectory.

I think that's all true in the Tigers case, though I would hope and expect that they don't get too high on their own supply, no matter how deep they go into these playoffs. This has been fun. I'm hoping to follow it for a while, but I hope that they view this hot streak and playoff appearance as an encouraging step forward, but not as a mission accomplished. Okay, our rebuild is complete, and now we can just sit back and wait for the full flowering of this raster

to happen because there are still a lot of areas that could use upgrades and there's plenty of payroll room to make that happen and there are pretty glaring weaknesses on this team. And even if they continue to have the pitching chaos powered approach and it keeps working for them with the openers and everything, I don't know that that's how you want to plan for a regular season. You could plan for that for a openers and everything. I don't know that that's how you want to plan for a regular season. You could plan for that for a postseason and you could default to that when you just don't have a lot of good starters left after the trade deadline, but you don't necessarily want to build around that or plan around that. Even the Rays, when they did, it was a matter of necessity and

lots of injuries and shorthandedness that they had. So I would hope that they take this as a leap forward and a fantastic reward for their fans who've been waiting patiently. And then they also build on that in a way that maybe the Orioles haven't always because yeah, they've got some work to do on this Tigers team too. The feeling I would want to have the day my team was eliminated from the postseason, whether that's before the playoffs begin or in the course of postseason play, if I worked in a major league organization would be, did I do all of the things I possibly could to

make this team a playoff caliber team? Did I squeeze every last little bit out of it? Did I build a roster where I didn't feel like there were holes? Did I do everything I could from a player-dev perspective to get my guys in a position to win? Did I do all that stuff? And if you did, it doesn't lessen the disappointment, but you can at least feel the satisfaction of knowing there was no other

lever to pull. Whichever of the Bills is the president in Independence Day, I will not remember for the rest of my life. I've yelled, are there any missiles left? And by God, there was one more, you know? There was one more, Ben. Yeah. BF Yeah. CB I want to be- CB Come on, put some respect on Bill Pullman's name. He deserves it. BF I respect them both so much, but I just, I talk, see, the thing about it is, I think

I remember which one is in Aliens and Twister, which is Bill Paxton, yeah? CB Yes. BF Yeah? Okay, but then I talk myself out of it. I don't have confidence, you know? I lack confidence and conviction. But anyway, love you both, Bills. RIP to the one, respect to the other. But all of that to say, I want to feel like I did everything I could. I know that some of the constraints that come with working in those roles, they're maybe not going to be obvious to us. And so I don't want to presume that I know all the stuff for all of these folks, but

that would be sort of the energy I want to bring to it because as we know, guys get hurt. Sometimes a lot of guys get hurt. Sometimes you get to the playoffs and you're the better team and you still lose. But did you put the best possible club on the field and did you do everything in your power to put that club in a position to win? And if you can answer yes to both of those questions and like it's a job well done and you might not get respect from your fan base for it and people might still complain, but like you will know that you did it. You did it and your gray hair looks great, man.

I think it's because so many of the guys in the current field are dealing with back issues, either like public or just like, sorry, looking at Adley being like, you're not right over there. It's making me think about age because that's where my aging is making itself the most known. It's like, hey, this worked fine for like the first 30 years of your life. And then in the last eight, it's been like, nah, I'm only going to work some of the time, you know? Tanner Iskra So we got to save some non-postseason news for next time because there's just been so much of it. And also next time we will only have one new playoff game to talk about.

Nicole Zichal We'll have to do the front office stuff next time, I think, because I got Buster Posey thoughts, Ben. I don't know about you, but boy, I got some thoughts. Tanner Iskra I have thoughts on that too. Yeah, okay. Let's save the RSN developments at least for... Okay, I wanna talk about that next time and then some attendance news and I have pitching triple crown thoughts

and there's a new Tommy John surgery. So I wanna talk about all these things next time, but let's just do a quick roundup of non-playoff news. First of all, the uniforms, our long national uniform nightmare is hopefully about to be over. I was musing after our White Sox pod the other day about whether the White Sox and their historic lack of success will be what we remember about this season. We always have that conversation and Sam writes about it. What's the thing that we'll remember about 2024 in baseball. And we can revisit that after the season when we've actually seen the entire season. But I was wondering, will it be

the White Sox? Will it be Otani 50-50 and winning an MVP as a D-Age? Will it be Aaron Judge Bonzing for five months? Will it be that Bravesves Mets doubleheader? Will it be something else? One possibility is the uniforms, that this was the year of the uniforms. And I know that the furor about that kind of died down. All the hubbub was more muted as the season went on, though you did your best. Not with me, not with me.

To keep surfacing it so that we did not forget. But we now have an announcement that this is changing. And that was like, that was one of the biggest baseball news items in a mainstream way of this season. Like if you heard anything about baseball this season, it was maybe the White Sox, it was maybe Otani, it was maybe the pants and the jerseys

and the small lettering and the transparency. And I know there's some debate and it's disputed that the transparency was, was actually heightened this year. And maybe we just noticed it more because we were focusing on the other aspects of the uniform. Who knows? We know the universal concern is the pant and that need no longer be a concern seemingly soon because two changes, two important changes are happening. First of all, we're rolling back the All-Star game uniforms,

the league uniforms for each team. We're going back to individual team uniforms being represented by their representatives on the All-Star team. So I think most people are pretty happy about that. There are certainly some people who think uniforms should be uniform. And if you're on a team, you should all wear the same uniform. And among them, maybe the main complaint has been that the uniforms have looked as bad as they have. So you'd probably please some people if you could have All-Star game uniforms

that just looked better. But I think on the whole, people are probably pretty happy about this. the whole people are probably pretty happy about this. And we've also got corrections to the shortcomings of the jerseys and the rest of the uniforms. So pant customization is coming back. How could we have ever lost the ability for players to customize their pants? Somehow that went away. So that's coming back. The lettering sizing is increasing, returning to previously used materials that the players requested. The changes will begin in 2025 and will be fully implemented by the start of the 2026 season, which is, I guess the production timelines and turnarounds for these things are long, but hopefully we will not have the mismatched top and bottoms like the road greys at least will be ready by spring training and all uniforms will return to the 2023 versions by 2026. And then

this will just be one of those historical stories that you wonder what was everyone thinking and how was this situation not avoided in the first place? Why did we have this sort of self-own here? But it appears that finally the deficiencies will be fixed. So that's good news if overdue. I just want everyone to know that I never gave up and I never stopped being annoying about this. And did I? Did I do it? No, no, no.

I'm not absurd. I'm not so self-important. But I do want everyone to remember that when given an opportunity to stop grousing about the uniforms, when given a chance to not notice so much when the Orioles would wear the orange tops and the white bottoms and I could just see right through Gunnar Henderson's pants. I said, no, no, I am the watcher on the wall. I, I will remind people that this is a problem. I will be the dogged journalist saying, can see through his pants, saying he's sweating.

And so his tops and his bottoms don't match. I was that person and I feel vindicated because it was wrong and now it will be put right maybe. CB Thank you. Good job Meg. We all thank you for making this happen. MS Thank you. Yeah, service. CB I did want to mention this was not news about a front office overhaul, but did you see, I assume you saw what Ken Kendrick said about Jordan Montgomery on the radio the other day? This was the sort of a plain spokenness.

This was almost like Steinbrenner senior-esque rhetoric here from the Diamondbacks owner who in public was talking about Jordan Montgomery and said, if anyone wants to blame anyone for Jordan Montgomery being a Diamondback, you're talking to the guy that should be blamed because I brought it to the front office's attention. I pushed for it, they agreed to it.

It wasn't in our game plan. And looking back in hindsight, a horrible decision to invest that money in a guy that performed as poorly as he did. It's our biggest mistake this season from a talent standpoint, and I'm the perpetrator of that. Like, I mean, good to take responsibility and ownership, so to speak, I guess, but this is from the Ron Washington school of talking about your players because Joe Montgomery

is still on the Diamondbacks. Now, I don't know whether this suggests that he might not be in the future, but he had a vesting player option for the upcoming season, which is $22.5 million because he reached 18 starts. And given the season that he had, you can't expect he's going to opt out of that, right? And thus he's going to be back presumably. Presumably. Now, do you think this is some kind of like galaxy brain 40 chess? Like what if I make Jordan Montgomery so mad that he leaves and we don't have to

pay him next year? Like, do you think that's what's happening here? Cause like otherwise, what's the benefit of just slagging off a guy in public like this who you're still going to be paying and hoping for more from next year. And Mike Hazen then talked about Montgomery and talked about it more in a typical front office speak way. Oh, it didn't work out the way that he and we wanted it to, more diplomatic, more measured, right? And Kendrick's just like, huge mistake. So I almost did wonder just like, is he trying to drive Jordan Montgomery away? Now, I guess the best thing that Jordan Montgomery could do if he's pissed at Kendrick for making these comments is to make him pay him. Also, I guess to show him by

pitching well, maybe, but I guess he could also look at it as like, I don't want to play for this guy. He dropped Scott Boris because he didn't like the way his free agency went. It's this rare situation, I guess, where he wasn't happy with the contract he got and then the team in retrospect was maybe even unhappier with the contract he got. So nobody's happy about this whole situation. But I couldn't help but think, is this an off the cuff comment by an owner who sometimes says injudicious things or is he actually trying to get out of paying him next season somehow? KS I've gone back and forth on this a lot because

on the one hand, I guess I appreciate him not throwing the front office under the bus for this that I was necessarily inclined to because Montgomery's signing was weird and it was late and then he was hurt and so it's like, man, what are you really getting out of Jordan Montgomery? While we were recording the news drop that Brent Strum is not returning to the D-backs and he and two other pitching coaches were dismissed. So clearly the organization is not happy with the way things went for the staff this year. Although again, like you had so many guys injured. It's like, Ken Kendrick, what if you spent time like, you know, fixing the AC? Why are all these guys

cramping? Is it because it's hot in there? You know? Like this is a, this is a theory that like goes around the valley that the reason all these guys are always cramping is because the AC isn't turned up high enough in Chase, which like, you know, it's been really hot this summer. It's been hot all the time. It's always hot, you know, hot, hot, hot. So I guess what I'm trying to say is that I appreciate him not like throwing the front office under the bus. It did feel like it went a little harder than was necessary. And, you know, if I'm Jordan Montgomery, in addition to the fact that my market is just going to be disastrous because of the year I had, I wouldn't be above sticking it to

the guy, you know, for saying rude stuff about me in public and being like, you thought I was bad last year? Well, guess what? You're going to pay me $20 million. I also think that it is useful for us to remember the possibility when we are dealing with old, rich weirdos that they might not know how they're going to sound when they talk about other people in public because they live a very different life than the rest of us and they are surrounded by different kinds of folks and they don't always get pushback when they're being like loud and kind of rude in

public. I don't know that he was wrong because like during Montgomery's year was pretty bad. And you could argue that, I don't want to put their season ending before October on Jordan Montgomery, because that's unfair. But I think that you could very credibly argue that the collective struggle either because of underperformance or injury of that staff is why they aren't in the postseason right now. Because clearly, especially in the second half, once Corbin Carroll like figured his stuff out and was, you know, the version of him that we saw win NL Rookie of the Year, like that offense was the best in baseball. Literally, Ben, it was the best in baseball in the second half.

It was just the best, you know? Better than the Dodgers. It was better than the Dodgers. It was better than everyone. It was better than all the other teams. It was the best, you know? Better than the Dodgers. It was better than the Dodgers. It was better than everyone. It was better than all the other teams. It was the best one. So I think having a reckoning around the pitching stuff makes sense. I do think that you can be direct and less rude. So there's that. But I think that if you're, you know, as wealthy as Ken Kendrick, you're not in the habit of doing that probably.

I don't want to generalize, but I feel comfortable with that generalization actually. So here we are. All right. So we'll save the Cardinals and Giants front office shakeups for next time. So much happened. I can't believe that you had us do a whole stupid episode. I mean, it was a great episode. It was so much fun.

I so appreciate James and other Ben and Jordan taking time out of their day. But in hindsight, the minute that doubleheader got scheduled, we should have been like, we don't need to record today. What were we thinking, Ben? What were we? I guess the White Sox still would have been historically horrible if we had talked about that over the off season sometime, but it felt fresh. They had just broken the records. I know. You're right. You're right. You're right, but also. Yeah, look, we get to everything, but we'll get to that and more Mets Brewers and other news next

time. I guess I'll just say I wrote an obit for Pete Rose. Now, I didn't have that many thoughts or feelings about Pete Rose, even though I wrote at some length about him. This was not an assignment I volunteered for. I was not clamoring to write about Pete Rose, but I was asked to. We needed someone to, and so I did. Ultimately, I guess I was pleased that I wrote the piece. My takeaway from this, I have a couple takeaways. One is that I don't know if there is, well, obviously anyone who has ever stained their own reputation and legacy the way that Pete Rose did to go from this athletic icon and hero to essentially a disgrace and embarrassment for baseball and to himself, right? And then also the perceptions of Pete Rose, that's sort of what I focused on in my pieces that like, if you saw Pete Rose play and you kind of came of age as a fan

when he was doing his hustling thing and he was the hit king and he was larger than life, then I think there are people who still look upon that fondly and I get that because when you weigh the pluses and minuses of life and someone who had the many moral and legal and ethical transgressions that he had and just all in all was just not a good person. There's just no other way to portray it really. But obviously gave a lot of people a lot of joy watching him play for more than 20 years. And I suppose that counts for something, whether he was doing it for their benefit or for his own as a very self-aggrandizing guy. But people who watched him when he was a kid and when he was that legend and when his reputation

was still unbesmirched, I think they look back fondly on him and still remember that. Now I think if you're kind of blinkered about it and you refuse to update your understanding of the kind of person Pete Rose was, then you should consider doing that because heroes have feet of clay and flaws don't begin to describe Pete Rose, I don't think. But it's not just the gambling and the betting on baseball and the tax evasion, it's the statutory rape. It is just everything that is pretty heinous and horrible about him in addition to just all the lying and all of the opportunistic just doing anything to make a buck. But if you came of age when we did and your experience of Pete Rose was post-banned by baseball, when he was just this sad, pitiable

figure, now I don't know if he's even pitiable now, but for a while he was pitiable. That was my entire exposure to Pete Rose is he's this guy who'll sign, sorry, I bet on baseball on an unlimited number of baseballs just to make a buck, which makes you doubt the sincerity of his remorse. And just like clearly a guy with a gambling problem, which you could have some sympathy for if he had owned up to it, if he had sought help, if he had described his ills and tried to become kind of a cautionary tale, but he didn't do anything like that. He obfuscated and he denied and just was so immersed in that world pretty

irreversibly to the point where it's hard to feel sorry for him. And certainly it was when all of the other allegations came to light, right? But he was just sad and kind of disgraceful for anyone who's like our age or even a little older who didn't see him in his prime. And there was like a selfishness to him in his career too, where even when he was a player manager and he was penciling himself into the lineup when he was clearly done pretty much and was just compiling hits to break the record for his personal glorification. And then of course, one of the signature moments of his career, Of course, one of the signature moments of his career, the hustle where he altered, ended essentially Ray Fosse's career in an exhibition game by barreling into him in home plate in a way that wouldn't be allowed today.

And so a lot of people look at that and say, that's when men were men and they took this stuff seriously and Arcia wasn't hugging Machado back then. They were like laying each other out in the All-Star game. And so there's kind of a mindset of like back in the day and he was like a retro throwback player, even in what we would now think of as the old school version of baseball. So all that stuff is sort of tied up in his legacy and people who still think, oh, he got a raw deal or yeah, he should be banned from baseball, but not for the hall of fame, which I guess is kind of defensible

if you put the character clause stuff aside. It's not even really like a complex or complicated legacy. It's really not like he's just not a good dude. Like it's just, you know, good baseball player. Even the ways in which he was good at baseball have kind of fallen out of favor a little bit. I mean, obviously like Hall of Fame caliber career statistically, but being the hit king is not what it was at that time. And there were portions of his career where

he didn't hit for power and he was just only kind of a singles hitter and he wasn't given you a whole lot else defensively on the bases, et cetera. And so he might have like the reputation or the name recognition of kind of like an inner circle Hall of Fame, great, but war wise, he's not really there, right? Like he has a lower war than Adrian Beltre or Jeff Bagwell or, you know, guys who came along more recently and displaced him on that leaderboard and he stuck around for a long time. So a big difference between his wins above replacement and his wins above average,

which kind of credits star power as opposed to longevity. So I mused about all of that really in my piece, but I think it really breaks down partly along age lines. Yeah, I think you're right. When you were exposed to Pete Rose, when you got to know him, because if you got to know him as a public figure when we did, it's just hard to look kindly upon any aspect of his sports legacy, whereas it's equally hard maybe to put that stuff aside if you were a kid and you were 12 when Pete Rose was one of the best and coolest players in baseball.

And I get that, but I don't know. Part of like growing up, I guess, is understanding the weaknesses of people you used to idolize. And when the weaknesses are as glaring as his are, you have to update your understanding of what kind of person he was. Yeah. I just don't, it just wasn't, it's not a complicated one. I don't want to dismiss the role that the statutory rape piece of it plays in our understanding of him as a

person. I also think it's interesting that we even get to that sort of level of analysis with him. He broke the unbreakable rule. He broke the unbreakable rule. He, like, that's it. You're done after that. Like there isn't, I understand it's easier perhaps for me to say that because I don't have any sentimental attachment to like the Big Red Machine teams.

Like that was never my baseball, right? So I get that maybe it's easy for me to say, but like you're done after that. There can't be a celebratory air to the conversation about you. Now, that doesn't mean that a person who was, you know, I don't want to cycle away and analyze a guy I've never met, but maybe if he had been willing to accept help, maybe I've never met, but maybe if he had been willing to accept help, maybe if he had more humility, maybe if he had been able to sort of grapple with his own feelings as a person, he could have admitted to the gambling earlier, right? Because last we forget, it took a long time before he actually said,

oh yeah, I did that. He denied it for years, for years and years, decades. And it was going on for a long time, maybe not the betting on baseball, but the betting. And then we don't even know exactly. Like there have been reports that he was betting on baseball and the Reds, even when he was still a player manager, not just when he was a manager.

And John Dowd, who the lawyer who did the investigation into him says that he suspects that he even bet against the Reds, although that was not proven or documented. It's just- But it doesn't have to be. He was in violation of the rule, right? The rule that like, you know, when we talk about the steroid era and the existential threat that that posed to the sport and the degree to which it took baseball a long time to come back from that. I think that we fail

to appreciate the degree to which the Black Sox scandal was just like almost the end, right? Like you can't be betting on the sport that you're playing or managing. You just can't. So we don't even have to do all this other work. I think it's good for us to grapple with these guys in their totality. I think we owe it to ourselves and the sport and the hall of fame to like really try to get our arms around who they were and what they mean.

And so again, I don't wanna say that we should sidestep that work, but I think that when it comes to, up, down, yes, no, in, out, you don't have to go there. You don't have to worry about the tax evasion. You don't have to grapple with the reality of this, like, man in his 30s having a sexual relationship with an underage girl.

Like, you don't, you should think about those things and, like, where that puts him is sort of the constellation for you as a person who loves baseball. But in terms of does this guy deserve to have a place in the Pantheon? Does he deserve to be in the Hall of Fame? I feel comfortable saying no. Like I get it's a museum, but, and like he's not getting around to enjoy the lottatory part of it, I suppose, but I think that this is a bright line that the sport has to maintain. And, you know, it's not like he did the work to like change your mind on that, right? It's not like Pete Rose was like this great dude who made this regrettable mistake and then he devoted himself to, you know, educating

others and changing his own reputation and doing all that work. He didn't do that. He was basically flipping the bird to the sport for the last, you know, 40 years of his life. I noted this earlier this year when the Marcano stuff broke, like the worst thing about these kind of gambling scandals is that they do like very serious harm to the sport and they do pose an existential threat to baseball. And the second worst part is that whenever they happen, the weirdest people on the internet come out of the fricking woodwork to like defend P. Rose. I don't know

if that'll stop now, but I hope it does because boy are they exhausting. Right. People have been saying, well, it was a lifetime ban and his lifetime is over. It was not a lifetime ban. He's on the permanently ineligible list. It was not tied to his lifetime. Yes. Now, the Hall of Fame eligibility was not always tied to that baseball eligibility list. They voted to do that after Pete Rose was banned. So they could reverse that. If the Hall of Fame wanted to just jettison the character clause entirely, in some ways, I think that might actually be a good thing, but they haven't done that. And no, there's no reason for them to reverse course just because Pete Rose died. And also, and we may have talked about this before, but everyone

pointing out there was a viral tweet about this the other day after he died, but not for the first time, suggesting that there's some hypocrisy in MLB continuing to ban Pete Rose while embracing sports betting. There isn't. They're just, I really don't see that at all. And we're the quickest to criticize getting in bed with sports betting, but it is not hypocritical, it's not inconsistent to say that you can ban players and team personnel, people who can actually affect the course of events from betting on baseball, even as you're encouraging fans to bet on baseball. Those are two entirely different categories and classes. One, there's a huge integrity concern,

and the other, there isn't. It makes complete sense in my mind to draw that distinction. Now, do I wish that there'd be less pushing of the sports betting? Are there ways in which that might make a scandal more likely? Yeah, absolutely. But I just don't see any problem with maintaining. It's not even like keeping two ideas in your head at the same time that are conflicting. They're not even conflicting. It's just a different group and class and category. And so I think it's a false equivalence to suggest that there's anything wrong with those two stances at the same time. LS I think there's a lot that we can say and have said about the sports betting piece. And I do think that it muddies the moral water, but the rule is very clear. You know, like baseball accepts Bud Light's money.

If a player played drunk, we'd have something to say about that. I don't want to like be too on my high horse, but like playing professional baseball is a privilege. You're not guaranteed that spot. And there are sacrifices that are asked of players and those affiliated with the game that are completely reasonable. And this is one of them. And if you have a hard time with that, then go get a different job.

I just don't have any, I'm so comfortable just being like, eh, that's too bad. Tough break for you, bud. Seems like a skill issue. And that skill issue part, maybe that's a little too cavalier because there are people with legitimate gambling addictions and they struggle with that and I want to have sympathy for that. But that sympathy, I'm sorry to say, cannot extend to there being a place in the game for people who are in a position to affect the outcome on the field and then bet on the sport. It's just a bright line we have to

maintain. Yeah. It was also fascinating to see who issued a statement. Yes. Tributes to Pete Rosen who did not. And Evandrelik wrote about the fact that even though MLB and the Players Association did put out statements, they were not signed. They were not bylined or attributed to Rob Manfred or Tony Clark, which usually a legendary player passes. Even if it's not Willie Mays or Henry Aaron, it's Orlando Cepeda or someone like that.

There will be a statement attributed to the commissioner, to Tony Clark. That was not the case here. I also, I noted that Donald Trump and JD Vance put out statements, tributes to Pete Rose. Joe Biden, Kamala Harris did not make of that what he will. I won't even say what I think about that. I have so many thoughts about that. I'm going to keep them in my little brain. Yeah, me too. JD Vance represents Ohio. I understand that obviously. There's a Pete Rose connection there.

I'm not sure that's the sole reason why there's a disparity here, but because he was a figure who, despite being a baseball legend, problematic, doesn't even begin to cover the rest of his life. And so to see who said something and who did not, well, it was telling perhaps. It was intriguing at the very least. LS – The statements from, not only were they not attributed the statements for Major League

Baseball, and was the Players Association one also unattributed? I didn't see that one. I only saw the one from the league. Not only was the one from the league unattributed, it very much had the like vibe of the like Taylor Tomlinson bit about like, you are a father, this is a day, here is a card. It was like, we have to acknowledge that this happened. How can we do that and sound as unemotional and unfazed as we possibly can? This is like an acknowledgement of an event and that is as far as we are likely to go. Like we are sorry for the people who enjoyed him. The unspoken part of that being like, we were not among those people. All right, a few follow ups for you.

First of all, phenomenal Mets Brewers game. So good that it was hardly marred by the fact that this time the digital display was to the right of the plate as viewed from the center field camera, which meant that every right-handed batter was flickering and the umpire was flickering the entire game. Hands were disappearing and reappearing, the umpire's mask looked almost cell shaded, yet nonetheless an all-timer. Forget Francisco indoors, top of the ninth go-ahead Homer. Now we have Pete Alonso's go-ahead top of the ninth homer, which according to Optistats, made him the first player in MLB history

to hit a go-ahead homer while trailing in the ninth inning or later of a winner-take-all postseason game. The rare fun fact that is legitimately fun despite arguably five qualifiers. I was going to say that if the Mets had lost that game, it would have retroactively made the Mets-Braves double header on Monday less memorable, just because it basically would have been for nothing if they'd both

been eliminated in the wildcard round. But now that Lindor's legendary homer has enabled another legendary homer, it has the potential to be even more memorable. And another fun consequence is that we get the first ever postseason Mets-Fillies matchup. We'll talk more about that game in that series next time. I have to say, I had what I would almost describe as a premonition of the homer based on nothing more than the fact that it was a 3-1 count, Pete Alonso hits lots of dingers, and so I could almost picture him hitting the homer before that swing, just thinking about how huge it would be, and then he did.

I would not say that rose to the level of a prediction. It was more of a thought experiment. Of course, literally while I've been recording this outro, I got a message from listener and Patreon supporter Citar, who notified me that there is a claim of a prediction of the Alonzo Homer. Here's Jose Iglesias. We never quit. I told P on the 8th, we were at defense, and I said, be ready, because next inning you're going to hit a home run. I can't explain it. You know? Why did you say that? It's my instinct. You know, I know how hard he's been working this series to get it going. I was

with him during batting practice, spending time with him. It's paying off. Incredible. I was somewhat surprised that Jackson Churio, whose season is now over, did not claim credit for having predicted either of his home runs in game two, because as we have learned, he is a prolific predictor. But on the subject of predictions, we got a good email from listener Sam, who wrote in to tell us about an interesting prediction that was made about Travis Darnow's walk-off home run last Friday against the Royals. Here's a brief report from Brave Sideline reporter Hanny Yates on Sunday's broadcast about how Michael Harris, the second, quote unquote, predicted Darnow's home Sunday's broadcast about how Michael Harris II, quote unquote,

predicted Darno's home run. I talked to Michael Harris as well, who said it's been so impressive, all the veteran leaders in the group this season, but specifically Travis, he said, in that moment, I called it out in the dugout, and I said, it's gonna be a slider, he's gonna hit it into the bullpen.

It wasn't a slider, it was a four-seam fastball, but he said, it's close enough. He said, I won't take the credit. He said, nonetheless, he has been a fantastic leader for this group, guys. As listener Sam says, what I thought was notable was that Harris apparently predicted

that Travis would see a slider and hit it into the bullpen, but then acknowledged the pitch was actually a four seam fastball, so he wouldn't take credit for it. Of course, he's sort of implicitly taking partial credit for predicting the homer at all, but perhaps we should give him at least partial credit for announcing his missed predictions

and not just the ones that come true. Good point. Also, I would note that that home run was not hit into the bullpen either. So he predicted a homer on a slider, hit into the bullpen. It was neither on a slider nor into the bullpen, but it was a home run. So yes, I think Harris is trying to have it both ways there,

but this is at least the rare instance of a baseball player prediction that was not said to have been perfectly accurate. Thanks for flagging that for us, Sam. Also, one White Sox fun fact that we neglected on our last episode, this comes to us from listener and Patreon supporter Patrick, and I had seen variations on this and I'd meant to mention it, but it slipped my mind. One fact that wasn't mentioned boggled my mind, that's Patrick's mind. If you remove the White Sox's three longest losing streaks, pretend those 47 games never existed and those 47 losses, they still had the worst winning percentage

in Major League Baseball this year. That would have given the White Sox a 41 and 74 record, which is a 357 winning percentage. The second worst team, the Rockies, had a 377 winning percentage. To have a better winning percentage than the Rockies, the White Sox would need another seven losses expunged from their record. That is a really good one.

Of course, to be fair, I suppose you should remove the Rockies' longest losing streaks too. This is kind of like that genre of fact where people say, well, if you remove this pitcher's X worst appearances, then his ERA was actually this low. Not noting that if you did that for everyone, everyone's ERA would be lower. Though in that case, the intention is to make the picture look good.

In this case, it's to make the white socks look even worse. And finally, I don't know exactly how to introduce this, but there's a meme that's been big on Twitter over the past couple months, maybe elsewhere. It probably started elsewhere as these things typically do. And the meme is about bouncing on it. And I am not talking about a trampoline. This is a sex-themed meme,

which I would not suggest searching while at work. I think the format has morphed over time, but the first popular example I could find with the current tone is from July 29th. Stoically and silently bouncing on it. From August, very viral tweet, bouncing on it in a way that establishes character development and furthers the plot. Or another very popular one, bouncing on it in a way that establishes character development and furthers the plot.

Or another very popular one, bouncing on it in a way that evokes an earlier theme, but with a slightly altered melody to indicate the progression of circumstances. More recently, it tends to be she's bouncing on it, as in this very popular example, she's bouncing on it in a manner that's truly a love letter to the genre.

You get it, or maybe you don't. Why do I mention this? Well, because I saw an even more recent one that's baseball themed. And I quote, she bouncing on it with the expressed written consent of Major League Baseball. Thousands of retweets, 35,000 likes. Here's the problem. It says expressed written consent. Of course, the actual phrase is express written consent. Also, I can't believe the guy who tweeted this didn't do anything with Disseminated. But this is a minor peeve of mine, the expressed written consent, very similar to another peeve which is when people say advanced scouting instead of advanced scouting, no D on the end. Whereas I suppose in this meme format there is an implied D on the end.

Ahem, anyway, I was trying to figure out what the correct term for this is. A phrase that's slightly altered from the correct version in a way that still sort of makes sense, but does change the meaning. So, without the expressed written consent, sounds like it could be right. Consent can be expressed, hopefully it was in the making of this meme, although expressed written would be kind of redundant, or with advanced scouting instead of advanced scouting, well advanced scouting is scouting done in advance, but it is also an advanced form of scouting. I thought it might be a Mondagreen, which is when you mishear or misinterpret a phrase, but that's usually specific to a song or a poem, something you overhear.

Well I emailed listener, Patreon supporter, word nerd Ben Zimmer, long time writer of the Wall Street Journal's language column, and he reminded me that there's another term that better fits the bill, egg-corn. I was familiar with this concept, I couldn't summon it to my mind, but Ben writes the term was coined in 2003 on Language Log, a group blog that he contributes to for reinterpretations of words and phrases that make sense in a new way. Egg-corn itself is an egg-corn, as it's a reinterpretation of acorn that makes sense because acorns are roughly egg-corn, as it's a reinterpretation of acorn that makes sense because acorns are

roughly egg-shaped. The egg-corn database has a whole category for forms that differ only by a final D or T sound, so your two examples would fall under that. Other examples in that category that add a D or T include Get Untracked for Get On Track, which Ben says he hears sportscasters say all the time, pass mustered instead of pass muster, fair to midland instead of fair to midland, cold slaw instead of coleslaw, and grow like top seed instead of grew like topsy. Examples that lose a D or T sound include doggy dog world, brand new, coal hearted, and goal standard. Egg corns often involve forms that are etymologically unrelated, but happen to sound alike, though in your examples,

the forms are more closely related. Thank you, other other Ben. Who knew that the bouncing on it meme would teach us about baseball and language? You can support Effectively Wild on Patreon by going to Patreon.com slash Effectively Wild. The following five listeners have already signed up and pledged some monthly or yearly amount to help keep the podcast going, help us stay ad-free, and get themselves access to some perks. Misha Berkowitz, Andrew, Jason Reynolds, Evan Hu, and Charlie Gruhler, thanks to all of

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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. Say, effectively wild Effectivement sauvage Effectivement sauvage