Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 2229: Manny Happy Returns

Episode Date: October 11, 2024

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about the possibility of players predicting opponents’ home runs, the Mets’ NLDS victory, New York’s title drought, Padres-Dodgers Games 3 and 4, Walker Buehler’s “earned” runs, Manny Machado’s clever, controversial dash, ALDS updates, a green-screen response and broadcast nitpicks, the possibly impending sale of the Twins, whether the ’25 […]

Hello and welcome to episode 2229 of Effectively Wild, baseball podcast from FanGraphs presented by our Patreon supporters. I am Ben Lindberg of The Ringer, joined by Meg Rowley of FanGraphs. Hello, Meg. Hello. So we led our last episode by talking about Carlos Estevez predicting two home runs that his fellow Phillies hit.

This time, I have to open with an email we got from listener, Patreon supporter Johnny who wrote in to say, do you think Carlos Estevez predicted he would give up a Grand Slam to Francisco Lindor? And I was wondering, you know, we were talking about exploring new horizons of player predictions. Has a player ever predicted that they would give up a home run or that one of their teammates would because we so often hear that someone predicted that a teammate of theirs would hit a home run.

But what about the flip side? It stands to reason to the extent that any of this is rational that players who are blessed with foreknowledge of their own team's home runs might also be cursed with occasional foreknowledge of the opposing team's home runs. So do you think that happens? And it's just that we don't hear about it so much because you're less likely to blab about it to a reporter afterward and say, yeah, I called the opposing team's home run or if you're Carlos Estevez, to come out and say, yeah, I had a feeling that Francisco Lindor was going to tag me with an essentially season-ending home run there. We don't tend to hear players pipe up about that.

Nicole Zichal-Bendis No, Ben, we don't. I mean, gosh, is there like a, basically you're asking, well, you're asking a couple of questions. The first that comes to my mind is like, is there, you know, Cassandra out there basically, who is, you know, cursed with foresight, but also doomed to have no one listen to her predictions in a way that might inspire some amount of change. I'm sure that there are players who like go into a particular game or even a particular inning with a bad feeling, quote unquote. Maybe they don't ascribe a particular outcome to it. They might not be that deterministic, although maybe they are.

But it seems like they have to, at least some of them have to think, this isn't going to go well. They're too superstitious of a population for that not to be an occurrence every now and again. I think that it would be profoundly demoralizing and you might have to get traded right away if you admitted to that. Perhaps not about yourself, although I think that you'd still be unlikely to share that trepidation and foresight with a reporter. You might go to your pitching coach and say, I didn't have it, man.

I felt like I didn't have it. I was worried that, you know, that slider wouldn't finish, that I'd hang a breaker, that I'd, you know, middle, middle of fastball. Like you might go to the coaching staff with that, although you might not because perhaps you're concerned about being given the opportunity to course correct another time, right? But you'd never say it to the media and you definitely would never say it about a teammate. Because I do think they'd think about whether they had to move you. Like if you came out and said- Yes, I think that would be bad for morale if you had someone constantly predicting your own team's failure. So they probably came out and said- Yes, I think that would be bad for morale if you had someone constantly predicting your

own team's failure. So they probably just keep that to themselves. But I'm sure it occurs to them. It's not as fun a game to throw out, this guy's going to take us deep as it is to say our guy's going to take them deep. And probably Carlos Estada was, he could not have felt great about facing Francisco Indore with the bases loaded and won out in the sixth inning. I mean, it's not a favorable situation. It doesn't augur well for you, but still that was his first batter of the game. He came in to replace Jeff Hoffman, who left him with a jam. And so I wonder as he was trotting in, did he have some, some tell? Did he know that that was going to happen? Because yes, players are always loathe to take themselves out of games,

to speak up about injuries. It's just, it's so hard to get there. You got to claw your way to the top and then they make you rip the uniform off your back, right? They don't want to just voluntarily sit out. And so to say, yeah, you know, I feel like I'm going to give up a home run to this guy. I think maybe you better put someone else in today. That just, you know, it probably wouldn't go well because then the manager is going to be thinking the next time they call down to the bullpen to get this guy up. It's like, well, what if he has a

presentiment while I'm about to bring him in and And suddenly I don't have any picture ready to go. I can't count on this guy if he suddenly has a vision of some dark future, some dark timeline. So you probably would keep it quiet and hope that it's just a false alarm. And probably most of the time it would be. I was also thinking about some sort of tragic scenario where it's always like the future telling parable, the situation where someone sees

something terrible is going to happen. And so they change something in order to avoid that thing and by changing something, they then bring it about. Right. So what if the pitcher says, yeah, I'm going to give up a home run to Francisco Indore here, you know what? I'll throw a pitch that normally I would never throw because I have this vision of myself, you know, throwing the pitch that

I usually would, or maybe in this situation, I probably went with this pitch and that's what backfired. So I'll just, I'll go with my next best option that I never, you know, it's like a Seinfeld George Costanza, like doing the opposite of what you would normally do. And it works for him for a while, but maybe the pitcher then realizes it all comes to them. It hits them after they get hit and they realize, oh, I brought this upon myself because I had this vision and I altered what I would normally do and here's how I got myself in trouble. So yeah, that's why it can be a problem to see the future. Yeah. Many, many a Star Trek episode would tell us that it is a burden best left to the gods,

right? I do wonder in that moment whether Estevez's primary thought was, I might groove a home run here or whether his thought was, why was Jeff Hoffman in this game for so long, Rob? What is, you lose the number for the bullpen out there, buddy. Like, I don't know what voice that was, but it was the voice I did, Ben. You know, it was what came to me. I can't say that I thought it was the best bit of managing that I always want to call him Rob Thompson, you know, every single time he's been around for, I mean, like decades

as a human being and years as a baseball person of note to me, but I still want to call him Rob Thompson, you know? Wait, he is Rob Thompson. Top, but I want to put a P in there. Oh, a Thompson. Oh, yes. Yes. Okay. Okay. Wow. Now I am so screwed now, buddy. I'm going to get it wrong for the rest of my life. With a P, I want to add a P. There a P. There's no P, no P, right? Yes, yes, that is correct.

Yes, I often encounter this problem with my dog whose name is Grumpkin. Just Grumpkin, no P, not Grumpkin, though she can be grumpy at times. I wanna say Grumpkin every time. Yes, and it doesn't sound that different if you say it fast, so it doesn't matter that much. And also I give anyone a pass

for not being able to guess the spelling of Grumpkin, unless you're deep into Game of Thrones lore, I would not expect you to be able to do that. Wait, it's from Game of Thrones? Grumpkin is from Game of Thrones? See, I added a P there too. You did. Not only did I add it, I put emphasis on it. Grumpkin. Well, she's sitting right behind me, but I'm wearing headphones so she can't hear. But it's true, people don't like it when you have naysayers and doomers, even if they turn

out to be right. I mean, this is the plot of Encanto. This is why we don't talk about Bruno. Although if like me, you have a three-year-old, you talk about Bruno every day, but Bruno's power was that he could see the future. And so when he gave voice to bad things that were going to happen, it's not that he made them happen, but he got blamed because he warned people that they were going to happen. I see. Okay.

And so if there were a baseball player who did that, unless then they went behind that player's back and went over their head to the manager and the manager knew that they had this special presence and was like, hey, you got any feelings? You got any inklings here? And then if that got out to the rest of the team, can you imagine if a fellow player was controlling who was used and who wasn't so probably better to keep quiet. And also definitely better not to give up a home run, especially a grand slam to Francisco Lindoor, but you know what, it's hard not to give up home runs to Francisco Lindoor and late hits to the Mets in general these days.

And that was, I guess, the death knell for the Phillies. Now, Nick Castellanos after game three had said, this is the closest to death we're ever going to get. So in a way, we should feel the most alive. Look, I don't know Nick Castellanos, right? I don't know if he's a good guy. I don't know if he's a fun hang. I love him so much, Ben. The shine that Scott Boris gets, and I know that a lot of the Boris shine is really like mockery. People liken to dig in on the analogies being garbo, because sometimes they are. But the amount of attention, I suppose I should say, that Scott Boris gets for his funny little sayings, put Nick Castellanos in a philosophy department, he changes an

entire generation of students. I swear to God, this man and his brain, I just, I love it. I love it so much. My goodness. Shows a healthy understanding of mortality. I mean, I guess, you know, being one game away from getting eliminated in the NLDS is probably not the closest to death you're ever going to get. I mean, that'd be nice if that were the case. I guess you could say that they're closer to death now. They were closer to death after they gave up that Francisco Lentour grand slam and their playoff hopes in fact are dead now. And you do just kind of have to hand it to the Mets.

As you were saying, the Phillies bullpen, we could criticize Rob Thompson, not Thompson's bullpen decisions, but he was sort of damned to whatever he did in the series because the Mets, Joshian pointed this out in his newsletter, but they have taken on two of the top pens in baseball this season, the Brewers and the Phillies, and they have just tattooed them. They have scored 26 runs in 26 innings

in seven games against those bullpens. And in this series, the Phillies relievers allowed 17 runs in 12 and two thirds. Every relief pitcher who appeared for the Phillies allowed at least one run. So not a single Phillies reliever was unscathed. No, it's not. So whichever lever Rob Thompson pulled here, he kind of got burned and the Phillies starters for the most part held up their end to the bargain.

And I guess you could say perhaps Thompson stuck with some of them a little too long and put relievers in disadvantageous positions, but really you have a bunch of good pitchers and they all give up runs and the Mets just get those big hits. So you combine the bullpen failures and the Mets clutch hitting with the lack of offense from the Phillies for the most part, right? In their losses, they scored two runs, two runs, one run. So they didn't cluster their runs very well or they clustered them too much. So it's just, it was a good team. I mean, we said this coming in, this is, I think, the best edition of these Phillies playoff teams we've seen over the past three post-seasons. And I think I said something

to the effect of, well, it would be just perfectly post-season if the best of the Phillies teams gets knocked out the earliest. And that's what happened. I don't think it means anything in particular, but you could almost kind of see it coming in a Carlos Estevez sort of way, just because it's so perfectly appropriate for, you know, I'm not buying into like they had a buy and they had the rest as opposed to before they didn't have the rest or they were the hungry upstarts and they had more youth than inexperience on their side and now they were the veterans. And, and Thompson said to Hannah Kaiser in a piece that she wrote for the ringer before the series that they used to be the side and now they were the veterans. And Thompson said to Hannah Kaiser in a piece that she wrote for The Ringer before this series that they used to be the

hunters and now they were the hunted. The target was on their back, but oh, that's narrative and that stuff's fun sometimes, but I don't make too much of it. Very nice to see Hannah's byline at The Ringer, by the way. I do think in a unknowable, unquantifiable human psychology way that sometimes being like dumb about the enormity of the moment can kind of give you a useful psychological barrier to becoming overwhelmed by the moment. I don't want to go too far with that. These are professional athletes and all of the guys on that team, I'm sure, have aspired

since they were wee little lads to win a World Series. So I don't want to say that the Phillies of the last couple of years were indifferent to or ignorant of the scope of the thing and the scale of the thing. Clearly they weren't. But they did have the fun, him clearly they weren't, but they did have sort of the like fun, himbo vibe, right? Like where you're just like, it's not that there are no thoughts going on up there. It's that there's no- Clearly, Nick Castellanos is having a lot of deep, profound thoughts.

Deep thoughts, profound thoughts, but not anxious thoughts seemingly, right? Like go with it thoughts. And I know like maybe that's a little weird to apply to Castellanos because he's had, you know, quite an up and down tenure in Philly and I know that that's been hard for him at times. But you know, I do think there's something to not being overwhelmed by the task in front of you. And I think that sometimes that's easier to do when you're like a little naive to it. Maybe naive is a better way of describing it.

I remember just to pick a completely insane example, a weird ass comp to bring to bear. But when I started working in finance in 2008, well, Ben, it was 2008, famously a great time to be- Yeah. What did you do, Meg? You broke the economy. It wasn't me. But you know, it was incredibly stressful. It was very scary.

It was obviously a horrible moment beyond the financial sector for tons of families across the country. I felt afraid. I felt afraid of losing my job. I felt afraid for like what it would portend for the direction of the country. But like I should have been even more afraid than I was. And I'm glad that I had like first year analyst brain to protect me, right? It kept the problem small because I was like, what if I get laid off?

Can I pay rent? Like, am I going to have to move home? Like, what's going to happen? Keeping it on that scale meant that I did not fully appreciate just how dire it was or how much worse it even could have been than it was, and it was quite bad. So I think there's something to that. I do got to say. I think it could work the other way though, just as easily. It's probably, this is all player specific and team specific, probably, right? Because this is why some of the studies suggest there's no benefit to experience or it's not better to be older or younger. And then Dan Simborski found, well, all else being equal, maybe it's a little bit better

just to be younger to have less experience, but you could get overwhelmed with less experience too. Sure, sure, sure. And so then after you've been in the postseason a couple of times, the pressure doesn't feel as disruptive, but it's all just how you're wired and how you prep for that series and what the makeup of that clubhouse is. It could kind of unmanned some teams and then other teams just it might roll off their backs.

So you never know. Right. Yeah. It's real N of one stuff, I think a lot of the time. We want to attribute a generalizable principle to these moments. And I think that's just really hard to do. But the Mets, whether or not they have the momentum, they certainly have the vibes, as you drew that important distinction last time. And it's just, it's all coming up, Mets these days. It's a lot of fun. And I saw that friend of the show, good friend of yours, Emma Batchelor, revised her stance on whether it's acceptable

or a good thing for teams to have more than one gimmick at once. And this is something that you had sort of said about the Mets coming into the series, right? That they should pick one. That they have Grimace and they have Haktua and they have, oh my God, and they have pumpkins. I want to be fair to the Mets here. I don't want us to overstate the degree to which the Haktua girl is part of the Mets general vibe or persona. I think she was there the one time. Yeah.

So I don't want to overstate the case. I still think they got too much going on. There's too many things, but. Yeah, well Emma tweeted that the Mets have forced me to reconsider my stance that a team should only have one gimmick at a time coming around to the idea that actually the perfect baseball team is a tangle of fast food mascots, roadside pumpkins, and journeymen infielders working on their music careers.

It just certainly seems to be working for them. I think that that is a perfectly defensible position. I still think that they have too much going on. You will note that Emma also did not include the Hawk Two, a girl in her list. Someone in our Patreon live stream described the aversion that they had to that situation as being sex positive, but influencer negative. And I don't remember who said it. You are a genius, a brain genius. That is the perfect encapsulation. I was like, what's the ick about that I'm getting? Because I don't care about the, and that's it. That's exactly it. Yeah. As influencers go, she seems like a pleasant one. She seems like her heart's in

the right place. It seems fine. She's helping cats and dogs. Not sure we need to pay as much attention to her as we are, but it seems like she's, you know, she's making the most of her moment in a non-harmful way. Anyway, the point is the vibes are great for the Mets. That doesn't mean they will continue to be great. It could all come crashing down when they play the Padres or the Dodgers in the NLCS, but it's been a very fun ride for them to get to this point. And they just took down a good team.

Although again, I really have stressed that I just don't think that there's that much to say about any of the upsets. I've seen some hand wringing about, oh, do we need to do something about the playoff format? I think it's a little less strenuous hand wringing than we've had the last couple of post-seasons. I personally just can't get that up in arms about this because I just don't think any of these teams is that great.

And the Phillies were good. They were a well-rounded roster. They also were 500 after the All-Star break and granted, no one was really pushing them and they were resting guys and taking their time, getting the players back and everything. But you know, not a juggernaut, not a super team, not a powerhouse, just a, a very strong baseball team. And for four games, they weren't strong enough.

And that's about all that I make of this. It's again, it's like the ways that they failed weren't really ways that you would have predicted that you could have anticipated or planned around. If it's the Dodgers, if the Dodgers end up losing the series because they didn't get enough starting pitching, you could say, oh, well, yeah, we knew that was gonna be a problem coming in

for this series. You would not have said that the Phillies bullpen was a big issue or that their offense would be a big issue. Sometimes it is over the course of a week or so. So it was a very fun series and obviously great atmosphere in both parks and big hits and memorable moments. So what more can you ask other than maybe a game five? And there were, as far as we know, just not, not even one brawl, not a single brawl was had.

Like restraint, admirable, surprising, if we're being candid, but admirable nonetheless. I do wonder if the malaise set in too early for the Philly fans to decide that they needed to, I was just gonna try to do a hock, hock to a joke, but I've decided that's a bad idea and I don't want to have to grasp for it any more than I was about to. So the Phillies lost, the Mets advance.

We should worry about the Mets improbable run opening some sort of hell mouth, but absent that, I think a good fun time. Baseball, we've talked about this a lot, baseball is such a funny sport because you don't get to decide really who's going to be there for the biggest moments. You can determine it to some extent on a base level, particularly with pitching, but like, the biggest at bat of the year could be Francisco Lindor, or it could be the bench guy you had to bring in because of an injury the inning before, right? You don't get to decide that part of it.

Who's going to be at the plate in the moment you need? And so for it to be Lindor, for him to rise to the moment that way, for him to get this postseason exposure, it's not like people didn't know who Francesca Lindor is, but I find it very unlikely that Lindor is going to win an LMBP, which I think is fine. And so it's really cool that he gets to have this stretch, this run where he is just not only playing on a team that is sort of emerging and probably triumphant, but that he is so instrumental in those triumphs. I just think that's really great, you know? I do have a baseline level of preparedness to be annoyed with Mets fans. Maybe that's because I lived in Queens

for five years, but I can be nothing but happy for Lindor. I'm just saying some of you guys are a lot. Some Philly fans are a lot. Fans are a lot, a lot of the time. Yeah, just in general. That's a good sweeping statement that applies all the time. There's a particular kind of a lot that sometimes can make itself felt in the Mets fan base. This interesting elixir of depression and bufrado and sometimes it washes over you in a way that's really charming and sometimes you're like, all right, you know, and again, too many things, so much stuff. Like, pick a, what is your, what does your restaurant do well?

Well, I'm a fan of this because as a fan of diners where they just do everything and whether it's well or not, I appreciate that I can get anything in a moment's notice. The Mets are kind of the perfect team for me. Just how are all of these items on the menu and how are you able to bring them to me so quickly? I don't understand and I don't want to know because the more I know, maybe the worse it would be, but I will just revel in the options, the choice at my disposal

here. You're thrilled by your firm to table Vientos. It's incredible that it's worked out and been prepared as well as it has. I mean that literally, what a credit to that young man. What a good position he's having. Yeah, he's been great. And it's nice if this is a swan song with the Mets for Alonso, which it may not be, but if it is, he's getting some big hits to go out on. And Vientos, who's the heir apparent, I mean, he's maybe a better hitter than Pete Alonso at this point. He's kind of a carbon copy of early Alonso and he's had those huge hits. And yes,

Lindor, not the NL MVP this year, almost certainly, but he has shown just how valuable he can be, just how important it is that he came back from that back injury, which certainly doesn't appear to be hampering him. But imagine if the Mets were without him, they might not be at this point. And also when he's had these huge hits, he's just been like ice cool when he has hit them, which I'm not saying that that's better or anything. I'm not trying to say act like you've been there, don't show excitement.

Like, you know, at Francisco Lador, like he's certainly the last person you would say he's like the poster boy for not showing emotion or excitement, obviously. Like we love Lador. Yeah, exactly. He's famous for his smile. But when he has hit these home runs

to just end teams, he has not moved a muscle facially, right? Like he's not bat flipping, he is not pumping his chest, he's not doing anything, which I think is kind of a fun change of pace just because a lot of people in the postseason, they get super excited. And I want that excitement. Obviously you want to see that in players. It mirrors what fans are feeling. But also when you just have like the silent assassin, you know, it's like, it's kind of a cool look. It's like when Kyle Schwaber hit his weed off Homer and just did a subtle

thumbs up to the bench and then the rest of the Phillies offense didn't follow him really, but that was kind of a cool gesture in the moment. You know, it's just a change of pace. We like variety in our player types and team constructions and also in our celebrations. Because if everyone is bat flipping, well then bat flips become kind of boring. Right. Yeah. I agree with that. I also wonder, you know, I know he, I'm not going to get the quote exactly right, but

you know, he had some quotes after the game because he was asked about that, sort of his more staid reaction to this huge moment and he talked about them needing to get the rest of the outs and they're not done yet and all of these things. I do wonder if you were a member of that 2016 Guardians team, are you just like, I'm not, until it's done, we're not doing, we're not doing s***. Just because it's like, I know what it feels like to have this ripped away from me. We're not, nope, nope, nope.

So I do wonder how much that is kind of operating in the background for him where it's like, don't, don't, don't like look at it too hard or think about it too much. Just like do, just do it. Just do what you need. Don't look at it too hard or think about it too much. Just do it. Just do what you need. You know? Mets fans are feeling that too. Katie Baker blogged about the Mets in Francisco Indoor for the ringer.

And when the Mets looked like they were going to cruise to that victory in that game, we lined up that piece from her and were wondering what her angle was going to be. And she refused to say what angle she was considering until the game was over, until it was official. She did not want to jinx anything. So I'm sure fans appreciate that forbearance in Francisco Indoor as well. And everything's coming up New York now because, you know, we've been in a title drought over here in the Big Apple. I know no one feels sorry for us,

but no major New York pro sports team has won a title since 2011, which is a virtual eternity in New York. I mean, we do have a lot of teams. So- You have a lot of teams. That is a long time. You know?

That's a lot. It's- By New York standards, it's a long time. Yeah, it's 13 years and counting. It's in fact, Neil Payne determined it's the longest drought for the New York metro area since the 16 years that passed between the 1905 New York Giants, the baseball version,

and the 1921 Giants winning the World Series. So it's the second longest drought overall in New York City. And unless you were around during the dead ball era, then you don't remember a longer drought in New York. So it's, it's notable. It's notable. And I, you know, I don't want people to be confused about my posture toward one of not only America's, but the world's great cities, you know, a vibrant tapestry of a place, wonderful food, interesting people,

great museums, libraries that are sometimes open. I know that they're open on the weekends again. That's not your fault. You know, it's like an accused felon had a plan. It was a bad one. A lot of the plans have turned out to be pretty bad as we've come to find out. Spotless mayoral records in every other respect, but that anti-library crusade, it's the one stain on whose honors record. Will you allow a quick digression? So you know that my stance is that now that I don't live there, and I appreciate that it's a huge city, big population, it's not unimportant what happens in New York City municipal politics, but that I have felt

a certain sense of grievance since I left New York that I am too aware of the details of New York City politics, that I have information thrust upon me that I'd prefer not to have to dwell on that other cities have their own goons and they should be allowed to fixate on those without hearing about your guises quite so much. And I know that Eric Adams has done very real damage to the city in a lot of important ways. I don't want to trivialize that damage. But I am making a notable and major exception. I cannot get enough Eric Adams information.

I think he is, I'm not the first to say this, the most unintentionally funny person in human history. A character that feels straight out of a Fellini film. I love it. Num, num, num, num, num. Like one of the rats, he is so bent on destroying. I am picking up every scrap and consuming it instantly because... Yes.

He referred to the current crisis he is facing the other day as vintage Eric, which is one way to refer to being entitled. I have a friend named Eric who is adopting Vintage Eric to refer to whatever he gets into some sort of deep trouble. So yes, but things are looking up for New York and other areas. So if you, if you, if you count the big four men's leagues and the WNBA, At some point you'll get rid of that guy, you know, one way or the other. The big four men's leagues and the WNBA, then Neil Payne counts the New York title tally at 57 all time, which is 17 more than the second place city, which is Boston after its

recent run of success. And again, it's been 13 years. That's twice as long as the third longest drought. It's the longest since between the 62 Yankees and the 68 Jets. Again, I know this is a world's smallest violence situation for almost everyone outside New York, but we are on the verge here of snapping that drought

because of course the Liberty are in the WNBA finals and are favored against the Lynx. And then there's more than a 40% chance as we record here on Thursday afternoon of either the Yankees or the Mets winning the World Series or something like a 20% chance of a Subway Series, which would guarantee a New York title. So yeah, exciting times. I'm back to thinking the whole thing is on parable.

But yeah, I mean, look, I think that it's nice. I don't know what the ideal outcome is for like neutral observers here, because on the one hand, if either of those teams goes on to actually compete in and then win the World Series, we will get a run of obnoxious bleacher creature type behavior, grimace will run rampant. How does, how does, again, I want to know how Mr. and Mrs. Met feel in this moment, abandoned, cast aside. Mrs. Met is like, I have been made a focus group amount of horny inducing and here I am having to give way to this purple monstrosity who's not even from here. So there's like the danger of New York effervescence in the broader sports culture, but also maybe

particularly if the Yankees win, there will be less grousing. I can't decide. I think both are motivated from the same place. And I will say again, that if some of you took that John Updike quote less seriously, God would let the Jets win occasionally, but you do. And so he has said that there must be consequences because we should be humbled. Yeah, that's fair. I don't know. I mean, we could just do this the whole episode because

really that's the only series that's decided. So, I mean, like, look, here we are waiting, recording ahead of the Tigers and the Guardians playing, ahead of these Yankees and the Royals playing, ahead of the Dodgers and the Padres playing. So we sit and must contemplate grimace because that is the only sure thing in our lives right now. And I can't keep looking at polling averages or I will throw myself into a cactus. Well, let's talk about Padres Dodgers then

because that at least won't be out of date by the time this episode goes up because game five is on Friday and how could we not be psyched for the end of that series? I mean, Yamamoto versus Darvish. We think Yamamoto versus Darvish. Yeah. Hopefully they give us that.

He hasn't committed to a starter though. The Dodgers didn't announce their starter publicly until a few hours before game four, which I guess is understandable because it was, well, Landonack or bullpen game, which ended up including Landonack at the very end. And they went with bullpen game. And you would have thought between the bullpen game and Freddie Freeman sitting that all the ingredients were there for the Padres to finish off the Dodgers at home and they couldn't do it and in fact they got knocked around.

They got shut out, ate to nothing and it didn't take long for the Dodgers to get on the board and press that advantage and then they just kept pulling away and there's a lot of hand-wringing about Mookie Betts and his 0-22 heading into what game 3. And then of course, he's responded with a 4-9 with two homers since then. And that doesn't count the homerun that Profar robbed from him in the prior game. So Mookie has shown up. That'll help.

We'll see whether Freeman returns and manages to treat that ankle enough to hobble out there for game five. But this was the first time since 2021 that the Dodgers had won an elimination game and staved off defeat. So they showed some fortitude there. There hasn't been any additional bad blood or purported plunkings on purpose or anything else tosses in the vicinity of dugout. Nothing untoward has gone on. It's just been pretty exciting baseball. And I guess there's probably more to say about game three because that was such a close game, a one run game in the end, and also because there were some controversial

plays and just some interesting, unusual plays. And maybe we can talk about that just to rewind to game three to that second inning when everything went wrong for the Dodgers and the defense let Walker Buehler down. And there was just a sequence of events that led to one of the softest six run innings you'll ever see, or at least a soft first four runs punctuated by an extremely hard home run by Fernandes Tatis Jr. But everything up to that point, that wasn't intended to be horny. I know, but I don't know, That didn't end up in the gutter. I don't know, man.

We're just in a weird spot. So if we can read the sequence of events, the play log from that strange bottom of the second. It was quite odd. Yeah, because the Dodgers took the lead in the top of the first, and then they're leading one nothing. We go into the bottom of the second,

Manny Machado starts off with a single. Then we get this pivotal play, this weird fielder's choice, where Jackson Merrill grounds to Freddie Freeman. Machado is running to second. Freeman's throw to second bounces off Machado's back and Machado advances to third. It goes down as an error on Freeman. Then you get Xander Bogart's reaching on another odd fielder's choice. This one was a mistake by Miguel Rojas,

who had been dealing with this groin issue and was soon removed from the game and obviously wasn't as mobile as he'd like to be, which makes it even more curious that he did what he did here, which was try to take it himself and turn double play instead of flipping. And would have been close even if he had flipped, but there would have been a good chance of an out and the way it worked out, he got zero outs. He didn't get the guy at second and then the relay was not in time.

And then you're really in trouble. And then David Peralta doubles on a ball that's just out of the reach of the diving, perhaps slowed by the ankle, Freddie Freeman. And then there's a infield single by Jake Cronenwurst to Roja. So it's just, everything's going wrong. And then Kal Higashioka had a sack fly and then a rise popped out. And then Fernando Tatis hit what turned out to be a very important home run, I guess, the game winner, because that gave what appeared to be a pretty safe lead to the Padres at the time, which was then almost entirely erased by Tasker Hernandez with his grand slam, which

then made it six to five. And then that's how that game ended. I certainly did not expect when the score was six to five at the end of three, that that would be the final score in that game. But weirdly it was anyway, the anatomy of that inning. So the ultimate line score for poor Walker Bueller, he was charged with six earned runs. They were all earned. Yeah, that feels wrong to me.

It feels cosmically unjust. I understand why it was scored that way. I was actually, Zach Cram, my colleague at the Ringer asked me why were all those runs earned. And I referred that question to an official scoring consultant, a listener of Effectively Wild, whom we have asked about official scoring questions many times in the past. And he wrote back to say, love that you asked that question. listener of Effectively Wild whom we have asked about official scoring questions many times in the past. And he wrote back to say, love that you asked about this play. He had been thinking about it himself and said, as you know, legal and smart play by Machado. We'll get to that in a second.

The scoring on this play was Fielder's choice, throwing error on the advancement by Machado to third base, it was not an assumed out error given Freeman's play on the ball and then throwing from his knees. Generally this action is considered beyond ordinary effort, thus ruled a straight fielder's choice. This is why all six runs in the inning were earned. Had Machado not advanced to third on this play, no error would have been called and it would be a straight fielder's choice. Since there's no assumption of an out,

given the way the rest of the inning went, all runs in this case are earned. So that's the official explanation. I think it holds water. I mean, you know. Sure. It's hard luck, but it seems reasonable. Yeah. And to be fair, like Bieler wasn't great in that game. He didn't get a single strike out. I mean, he hasn't been himself all season, really, right? So, you know, he's not sharp. No, he did better than I expected to hold it at six, frankly, and Roberts trusted him to do that and he delivered. So yeah, like he's not the Walker Buehler of old. He's going to have an interesting free agency, I guess, but we can talk about that sometime down the road. But yeah, it was on the one hand, hard luck. And then on the

other hand, he's just not that great right now. And so he often gives up several runs and starts often early and starts just not in quite as weird a way. So that's why he was charged with six earned runs. Now, as to the legality of Machado's play, this is something that caused a lot of controversy too and some frustration. So you also talked to Craig Goldstein in GChat, is what you're saying. No, not Craig actually, I didn't. But Joshian wrote about this second time I'm citing Joe on this episode. He had a little rant about this in his newsletter where he said, if Machado's play is legal

and by all accounts it is, I'd like to know where the line is drawn on runners blocking throws. Can a base runner just knock down a throw on its way to a fielder? Can he catch it and toss it into foul territory? Can a runner going first to second stay in a direct line but wave his hands and oven mitt in the air like he just doesn't care?

If what Machado did going well out of his way to block Freeman's throw is acceptable, why wouldn't blocking a throw from right field to third base be? I'm honestly asking because if Machado's actions don't break any rules it seems to open the door to a lot more hijinks on the bases. This does maybe put you in mind of Sam Miller's skunk in the outfield play and how sometimes the base paths are not defined, right? But I think there is a clear distinction here. I guess we could say whether something like this, you know, might still be against the spirit of the rule as drawn up, but I understand

why it was legal. And I put this to our official scoring consultant too. And he said, well, there was no avoidance of a tag. He's just establishing his own base path, which can be virtually anything until a tag occurs and then the three foot rule comes into play. This makes sense. Think of the path runners take when rounding first and second on a multi-base hit.

They're way outside of three feet in the baseline. Here's the specific rule book reference, and I'll just read here, Section 509B3, retiring a runner. Any runner is out when he runs more than three feet away from his base path to avoid being tagged unless his action is to avoid interference with a fielder fielding a batted ball. A runner's base path is established when the tag attempt occurs and is a straight line from the runner to the base he is attempting to reach safely. Or after touching first base,

he leaves the base path, obviously abandoning his effort to touch the next base. There is another provision here, he intentionally interferes with a thrown ball or hinders a fielder attempting to make a play on a batted ball, in which case the penalty applying to a runner's intentional interference with a thrown ball or his hindrance of a fielder's attempt to make a play on a batted ball, right? But as noted in that third provision there, it has to be intentional when our score says, given Machado had his back to the play, yes, he tried to get in the way,

but had no way to determine where the throw would be going. So- Which is an interesting interpretation of that behavior because it suggests an intent to interfere, right? Like, and this is why, I mean, say to you what I said to Craig, which is, I don't care. I mean, I said other stuff to than that because like, you know, he was worked up and we're friends, but like the baseline was, I didn't really care.

I also was editing during that part of the game and so I didn't- The baseline wasn't defined actually, I guess. It's the base path, nevermind. Continue. Excuse my bad joke. I'm fine. I'm fine with how they called it. I think that when the runner's back is turned to the throw, it's fine to say that your actual

ability to interfere is compromised to some degree. But I also think that this is part of why you can get into a little bit of trouble when you build intent into your rule book, right? Because I think everyone watching that play, including many of the former players who were on the desk after, commented on how it was heads up based running on Machado's part, right? Because Machado has, his back might be turned, but he's not new, you know, it's not his first day. He has a general sense of where the throw is going to go and the path it's going to take because he's played a lot of baseball. And so the idea that he

like was completely incapable of influencing the outcome of that moment seems wrong to me. And I think he probably did intend to cause a little bit of trouble on the bass pass. He said as much. He said that the Padres had been practicing that since spring training. And he said, ground ball to Freddie, I'm just trying to make a tough throw for him to second base. And then Freeman tipped his cap and said, I would have done the same thing as a base runner. So yeah, it was intentional. I want to come back to Freeman's comment to issue a correction on a prior post of mine. But I think that there was intent to impact the outcome of that play. I think that his ability to actually do that is to some important

degree compromised by the fact that even though he might have a general sense of where the ball is going to be, he can't see it, right? So it's importantly different than like Joe's scenario where a runner jumps up in the air, like he just don't care, right? In that scenario, I'm envisioning him doing that and like having nanner, nanner, nanner face while he does and facing the guy. So I do think that there is an important distinction in terms of your ability to actually execute the interference, but it appears that the intent to interfere was present. Now even having said that, I think that the way that it was called on the field is fine

because his back was turned and his ability to do it is like, you know, havesies. But we should think perhaps about like, yet again, about how advisable it is to like build intent into the structure. There are going to be times where that's like unavoidable and is an important, you know, fact to consider in the case, right? But sometimes you get in this weird spot where it's like, he intended to interfere, it seems obvious. That play is not, my understanding is that is not a challengeable play, right? Or that call rather is not a challengeable call that is an umpire discretion kind of a deal. I do wonder if Dave Roberts would

have been well served to stamp his feet a little bit or do a, don't you want a conference on that? Do that thing that managers do where they're like, I'm not doing a challenge, I'm just asking a question about whether you want to get together with your good friends and talk about what you just saw. I wonder if he would have been well served to do that, but I think the call was right, but the rule is weird. It's a weird rule. It is a little weird. My scoring consultant said that this falls under not intentional just because his back was to the play. I know Machado did what he did to intentionally make the throw difficult, but he didn't intentionally get hit.

I mean, you know, we're splitting hairs there, I suppose. But had he turned and seen the throw and then adjusted his path, I think he would have been ruled out. I think the point is valid. The waving of arms would certainly be an odd look, particularly if the runner's attempting to reach the base safely.

If the runner was looking at the throw and adjusted his body to get hit, it certainly would be ruled intentional and the runner declared out. I'm sorry. I'm now envisioning Manny Machado with his back to Freddie Freeman, running like he, with his arms waving in the air, being like, not interfering, not interfering, not touching, can't get there. And it's funny too. Yes, waving like a used car lot, interfering, not touching, can't get mad. And it's funny too.

Yes, waving like a used car lot, wavy guy. Like these little noodle guys, like ooh. Right, so it's weird because if Machado had been backpedaling instead of running the usual way and had followed- Which would have been a very strange choice given the circumstances. But if he had, and if he had followed exactly the same trajectory while watching the throw

and positioning himself in front of it, then he probably would have been out as it was. Well, he was still trying to get in the way of the throw or at least to make the throw more difficult, but he never saw the throw. He did it well, right? So it is kind of weird and I guess you could rewrite the rule to do away with even that, but it's not quite what Joe was saying, I don't think. And our official scoring consultant actually sent me

an example from last season, actually from 2022, I think it was, of Cole Calhoun, or no, I think it was from 2020, actually. Cole Calhoun was called out for essentially headbutting a baseball and it was a similar situation. I'll link to it on the show page and I'll send it to you. But he was running between first and second and he was turned to face the throw and he clearly just put his heads in the line of the ball and just knocked it off course. And like it was obviously intentional and he saw the throw coming and he did it.

And so he was called out. So you can get called out if you do that but I think that is importantly different from what Machado did here. So this was just heads up so to speak baseball. This was just smart base running and tough luck for Bueller and the Padres capitalized it and broke that into a big inning. So well done Machadoueller and the Padres capitalized it and broke that into

a big inning. So well done Machado, well done Padres. What were you going to say about correcting yourself Ray Freeman? He really does like headbutt the ball. That's sort of a callous disregard for your own nog and even with a batting helmet on. Man, 2020, what a weird year. I love how many misplays by the Rockies there are before we get to the point of this. It's a long highlight. Yeah. I was like, where does he do it? Well, they goofed up there. They goofed up there. Tori Lavelle was very upset. Oh, about bulls**t. Sorry, swear. Ah, it's a bulls**t. See, Tori's

all worked up. Tori knows to get worked up in this moment. I'm so mad I'm taking my mask off. Well, maybe don't do that, Tori. Okay, anyway, neither here nor there. I don't know if it's a correction so much as an acknowledgement that last time I suggested to, and I'm going to use a less problematic word, that I suggested to the Dodgers that they might not want to volunteer to be

whiny little babies in the face of Manny Machado admittedly being rude, quite rude, but not engaging in, it seemed from video, actual headhunting or anything dangerous. He was trying to be rude, and he was rude. Disrespectful, one might even say, which is the word Dave Roberts used, but not dangerous. And it felt like it fell within the bounds of like, hey, these are two division rivals. Everyone's heated. It's an emotional game. There's yelling, there's cursing, and there's this purpose throw, but not a purposely harmful throw from Manny Machado. And then before the episode even drops, Ben, I felt like the Dodgers, perhaps sensing that advice on the air, perhaps reflecting on how much they sounded like whiny little

babies, less Dave Robertson, more like the whole Org's vibe, they, I thought, de-escalated that vibe. Gavin Lux had some comments prior to the game that basically put all of this in the context of rivalry. I thought that Freeman's remark about Machado and the base running thing, a moment where again had they wanted to lean in to the baby vibe, they could have done that. But Freddie Freeman was just like, I would have done the same thing. First of all, I think true.

And second of all, a lovely vibe shift from the earlier consternation. And so I just want to acknowledge that because I think part of why these moments can kind of create an ethos, and I sort of spoke to this the last time we recorded, but it bears repeating, that part of the way that a vibe gets created is that it's the postseason, there are a lot of reporters in the clubhouse, and they're talking to every guy about the big controversial moment. And so it can create a sense of being big mad about a thing. When, you know, in the regular season when you would have, you might have fewer people there, even with the Dodgers and, you know, more different storylines that you might not get this like volume of comments about the same thing. All

it takes is a couple of guys, not that they were being baited, I don't mean it like they were in the midst of a gotcha moment on the part of the guys, not that they were being baited, I don't mean it like they were in the midst of a gotcha moment on the part of the reporters, but like they could have taken a moment like Machado's base running and dug in and really arseied the thing, you know? And they didn't do that. And so I simply say to the Dodgers, well done. All right, well, we look forward to game five and we will discuss that next time. And we'll see who will meet the Nets in the NLCS and we'll see if Kroos Mendoza gets himself in trouble with slow hooks against a tough NL West opponent.

So much to get excited for, so much to discuss when the time comes. Also meant to mention another play that's relevant to the Machado discussion we just had back in April of this season. Aaron Judge slid into second to break up a double play against the Brewers and he put his hand up with his sliding glove on as if he was trying to block a basketball shot. And the relay throw from Willie Adamis went off of Judge's fingertips. And that was that. And Pat Murphy did go out to argue. The umpires conferenced.

They decided that it was okay. But then the crew chief, Andy Fletcher, after the game, admitted that they missed the call. It wasn't reviewable. But after looking at the replay postgame, they said it should have been called interference because it wasn't a natural part of his slide. So in that case, the throw was happening in front of Judge. And he lifted up his hands to put it in the path of the throw. And Judge said he always slides like that and then it's never been called, but that was a similarly big play in that game because it was tied at four in the sixth inning and then the Yankees scored seven runs in the

rest of that inning with two outs and that was the end of the game essentially. So this is always kind of a controversial play. And in that case, Adamus said, he's like seven feet tall, he's huge. I think when he puts his hands up, he's taller than me even when he's sliding to second base. It's a tough space for me to throw the ball. Not so different from Joe's hypothetical about the slider waving his hands in the air like he just doesn't care. So speaking of Judge, we can maybe briefly touch on the AL series because again, we'll be a game out of date on these by the next time we record and maybe by the time this goes up, right? So a couple of quick thoughts on these series, I guess,

A with Yankees Royals. If Machado was the guy who was getting grief and giving grief in that series, it's Jazz Chisholm in the Yankees Royals series because of a quote he had where he said that the Royals got lucky when they won, what was it, game two. And he didn't mean it that way. What he meant was that the Yankees had not delivered the clutch hit, they had not delivered with men on base. And so he was suggesting that really the Yankees got unlucky or that the Royals got lucky, that the Yankees didn't come up big in that moment. He wasn't so much denigrating the Royals as he was kind of acknowledging his own team's failings, but it didn't really get perceived that way, understandably. And

Aaron Boone did his best to deescalate that by saying that he didn't think the Royals got lucky and trying to kind of clarify what Jazz had said. But Jazz is now kind of embracing the heel role in that series going to Kansas City where he's been booed pretty mercilessly. And when he was asked about the booing afterward, he said, I live for that s***. He also channeled the old Reggie Jackson line about fans don't boo nobody's and he said, I ain't never seen nobody boo a bum. You feel me right now? He hasn't played particularly well in the series.

He did hit that one home run after the game was essentially over, but he has, he has reveled in this. So he has welcomed that heel role and the Yankees went into Kansas city and they won one. They took an important game three. An interesting little wrinkle about this was that usually a team will travel as soon as possible. If there's an off day and there's so many off days, this, especially like on the AL side, I mean, well, no, not for you, but for individual teams

and individual series, a lot of off days, which I don't love. There are pluses and minuses, which we've discussed in the past. You get to see more of the, the A lineups and the first string pitchers, but also it kind of distorts your usage of your roster and you can just focus on some players instead of using all the guys who got you there. Right. So, you know, there are good things and bad things about that, but players instead of using all the guys who got you there. Right. So, you know, there are good things and bad things about that, but it's definitely different

from the regular season. Anyway, usually if you've got the off day, you make the flight immediately to your destination and then you have the off day in that city. And maybe you do a workout at the opposing team's park. The Yankees didn't do that. Apparently, according to Aaron Boone, hotels were an issue with the Chief Saints Monday Night Football game. So there was no room at the inn, evidently, or at least at the inns that the Yankees wanted

to stay at. So instead- How funny. Yeah, they stayed in New York and they did a workout in the Bronx and then just flew to Kansas City a day later. And honestly, I'm actually semi-surprised that teams don't just do that more often because like, isn't there something to be said for having another night at home and just like sleeping in your bed.

And I could see that there might be some benefit in acclimating to that park and that environment that you're going to be playing in and not having to, you know, you won't, you wouldn't have to take a red eye or get in in the middle of the night if you have that day off, presumably. So I could see the benefits of sticking around and just being with your family and being just kind of out of the limelight a little bit. Maybe that would be sort of a de-stressor, but that's not typically what teams opt to do. So the Yankees did the abnormal thing and they went against City a day later than they usually would and didn't seem to face them.

They are up in the series as we speak. It's been kind of like an ugly series. Teams are winning ugly in these games. It's kind of like a lot of walks and just, you know, like not, not clean play, just lots of runners left on base on both sides. And yeah, it's, it hasn't been quite as crisp, I would say as the NL series or, or, you know, lots of lead changes like in game one, of course, like a record number, but they were all one run leads and they never felt safe.

So it's been sort of a strange one, but we will see how this one ends up. And of course, one of the story lines is Aaron Judge, not hitting again in the postseason. Look, I understand why these things become stories. You have the guy who's coming off maybe the best offensive season ever by a right-handed hitter and doesn't immediately

go ham in the playoffs. Okay, people are going to talk about that, sure, but it's always silly. It's like Mookie just showed you, you're in a slump, a slump that stretches over multiple post-seasons. It's not like it's a sustained stretch of slumping in a single post-season. And if you've got a guy that good, they're going gonna snap that slump at some point. It's just a matter of, are you gonna make it long enough to give them the chance to heat up? And that's the weird thing, I guess, about the series is that it was kind of billed as judge versus wit. And they basically both been non-factors

in the series so far. That may very well have changed by the time people are hearing this, but through the first three games, not a lot of offensive firepower out at either of those guys. But it's really just a matter of time with Aaron judge. You just know, you know, you give them enough opportunities. Eventually he's going to make you pay and you're going to get the 2002 bonds, 2009 a

rod type breakout where great hitter hasn't done great in the postseason. And then suddenly plays like their usual self. So you know it's coming and I guess for the Yankees, you hope it comes soon, but if they can keep stealing some games without getting much out of judge, well that's a bonus. Yeah. I mean, like all they need is for Giancarlo Santon to keep hitting big tanks and like they should be fine. And stealing bases. Power speed threat.

Giancarlo. Stealing bases then. I want to return to the jazz thing ever so slightly for just for a moment and say like you can clarify and try to move on or you can lean into the heel thing and we can't have everyone trying to be a heel, right? And again, there's a difference between being a heel and being a whiny baby. And so like being a whiny baby, don't do that.

That's bad. People are bad bad. And don't be a genuine villain either. Right, sure. Right, like for instance, don't be a heel about other teams and stare into the broadcast camera after home runs in a season where your team is, it will come to be famously stealing signs illegally.

That's a bad look. That's about Alex Bregman. So don't be a heel in a way that can be revised and re-contextualized later. That's a bad way to be a heel. But baseball needs a couple of heels. It needs a couple to keep it interesting. You don't want too many because you don't want to be too much like wrestling. That's not a sport.

Sorry, I'm going to get emails. I'll answer them. But the people who are, look, it's fine. I'm glad you like what you like, but relax over there. You could just go see real theater. It would be fine. You could just go see real theater. It would be, it would be fine. You could just like have a cultural experience. I know that people like wrestling. I'm going to have to issue a statement after this. The comments of Meg Raleigh are not reflective.

No, I am not reflective of the official stance of Effectively Wild. That's fine. I was like, oh, it'll be better that all of these people are into Formula One now. No, it just doubled the posts, Ben. It's not like they stopped posting about wrestling. They just started posting about Formula One too. Like, not one, two, also in addition as well. And then a lot of them live in the New York area and it's like, then they're posting about Adams and like that was annoying, but now it's great. So maybe it's all balanced out. Anyway, good job, Jazz.

It's fine to have a couple of heel turns. Even though I think that your interpretation and Boone's interpretation is right, I don't think he meant it to be a slight against the Royals at all. I think he meant it as like an assessment of his own team. But then he was like, man, you know, I'll just be a heel. Also, bum underrated insult. We should be throwing bum around so much more than we do. It is cutting.

It is. Bum is great and it doesn't have to be bleeped. So perfect insult for the podcast set. I just got to say. I sometimes wrestle with whether we can still call the Dodgers the Bums, not because of their postseason failures, but because that used to be the nickname of the Dodgers. But that does feel Brooklyn specific. And I know now there are various, you know, blue related nicknames for the Dodgers.

And so maybe Bums, maybe we should just leave that in Brooklyn. People still use it. And it's kind of a nice nod to the history of the franchise, I suppose. Okay, so the other AL Central series, the one that is also 2-1 as we record, this one in favor of Detroit. So they did their Pitch in Chaos thing in Game 3 and it worked again.

It worked again, Ben. This will not work indefinitely, but it has worked well. Well, it doesn't have to, they just have to get to Scoobble. That's all they, they just have to get to Scoobble and his Scoobble snacks. Yes, and the AL's off-day schedule makes it easier for them, I think, to get away with this chaos theory thing. And as Matt Trueblood pointed out in a piece at BP, they kind of maybe deeked the Guardians a little bit when it came to the lineup, just because they started Cater Montero. And as a result, Stephen Vogt set up his lineup accordingly

and put in Bo Naylor, who might've been in there anyway, because Austin Hedges doesn't hit anyone. We love you and you're framing Austin, but yeah. And the platoon advantage only goes so far compared to the Hedges disadvantage, which is just not hitting anyone, but also left-handed hitting outfielder Will Brennan was in there.

So by starting Montero and then leaving him in only for an inning, which I didn't expect because Montero is like actually a starter, relative to most of their other pitchers, not named Scoobel. And so I figured he'd at least go once through the lineup or something. And maybe Voht figured that too. And then he didn't and he was yanked after one and it was just a series of bullpen guys. And then Voht had to pinch hit with Noel in the second and Fry in the third.

And then his bench was limited for the rest of that game. And it was the first time Matt noted a team had used two players as pinch hitters for non pitchers in the first three innings of a playoff game since 1920. So that was maybe a little bit of a rope-a-dope or gamesmanship or deking the Guardians into setting up their lineup in a way that ultimately favored the Tigers in their pitching chaos approach. But really, the Guardians just haven't scored

in something like 20 innings now as we speak. So this is not a clash of the Titans, offensively speaking, and neither team known for its hitting. So the Tigers have just, they've gotten the big hits, and the pitching chaos chaos has worked and their one went away as we speak. I don't know. I don't know if he got bamboozled or if it was the plan all along. I don't know

which assessment I think is better from Votes perspective because if the plan all along was to, maybe the plan all along was like to pull Brennan as soon as he was going to be up to hit and then against the lefty. And then like, you just didn't think that Montero would be so efficient, but that feels too cute by half. You know, it's like, then don't start him, just start Noel and then have Brennan available as an option off the bench later. So that part I found a little bit strange.

I thought that some of that was a little bit odd, but to your point, yeah, like they just have to score some runs. Their pitching has held largely. I know that like Klasay gave up that huge home run and like it was so dramatic because it was Klasay. He never does that. You should be able to endure and end up triumphing in a couple of games where across nine innings your staff in whatever configuration allows three runs. You should be able to do that a couple of times because if you don't, you're probably

going to go home. You're probably going to go home. But yeah, now their, like now their backs are really up against it, Ben. They're really up against it. Yeah, the Guardians' pen, despite that, Class A homer has been pretty effective overall. And they have used pitchers as starters

that didn't really rely on that much to get to this point. I mean, Matt Boyd made eight starts this year, and Cobb, Alex Cobb made three starts this year and then a lot of their regular relievers aren't even on the roster. So, they've kind of turned over the pitching staff, even though the bullpen was what got them to this point. So, it's just a strange product of the playoffs and the playoff schedule, etc. But we will return to both of those series next time because we will have gotten additional material to discuss and possibly a victor in one or both of those

series. So I have one more update about the broadcasting issues, the flickering and the haloing, et cetera, the digital ads, the lack of green screen, and the effects of that. I said that I would put those concerns to MLB because last time I cited some people who've been involved in actual broadcasts and they confirmed that, yeah, this is a problem and something's got to be done about it. So here's what the league said in response to my inquiry. Since last season, national broadcasts have implemented new technology that inserts virtual signage, eliminating the need for the traditional green board.

Disputable whether it actually eliminated the need because it seems like maybe there still is a need, but that's what the statement says. MLB and its partners are aware of occasional flickering and haloing that have appeared on some broadcasts which can be caused by changing lighting conditions. At this time, MLB and its broadcast partners are working on resolving the matter

and refining the technology to ensure the best possible viewing experience for our fans. So in the short term, obviously they have reached the conclusion that the additional revenue is worth slightly compromising the viewing experience for the fans, but they are aware of the issue. They have acknowledged the issue to me. They are supposedly working on a fix and

as a spectator, I hope that they find one. I hope there is some easy technological fix that can, because I don't have any philosophical issue with the virtual signage. It's just I don't want to be bothered by it. So if they can fix that, fine. I guess we'll see whether they do. Do you think that they acknowledged it as a problem because they're like if we don't acknowledge to him that there is a flickering, he will go on a Meg Rowley about the pants-esque crusade to bring it up at inopportune moments with persistence that will make people wonder why she's so fixated on this, but also she's right. Do you think that's why they were like, oh, we got to nip this potential EW issue

in the bud. Maybe if they had tried to tell me that there was no issue and that I was simply seeing things and that I should consult an ophthalmologist or something, then I probably would have brought it up often just to wonder whether my mind was playing tricks on me. I know it's not because many of our listeners have brought up this issue as well. So yes, if they had tried to tell us that we weren't seeing what we were seeing, then I would have objected to that. So I guess they had no choice but to acknowledge the obvious reality,

which is clear as daylight in front of our faces. You say that, you say that, but sometimes presented with a thing we have all seen and no to be weird. They're like, no. Well, they did have receipts about the transparent pants, which caused us all to question our memories and realities. But yeah, something was different there, obviously, the material, the customization.

But it's possible that we had not noticed some issues that had been there before, which as we said at the time, like, oh, so you're telling us the pants were always semi-transparent. Well, that's not good either. Ben, there, look, there, we don't have to relitigate the pants, but I simply must make this point that there are far too many people for baseball butts for us to have not noticed the transparent pants before. I am on these streets. I am around these horny people. And I am here to tell you that if they had been able to visualize that much of any member of the Phillies butts, they would have been doing that every day, every single day. No, no.

Well, while I was being the voice of the people here, I also asked about another issue. I have not gotten a response to this inquiry, but I asked about one that we've gotten plenty of inquiries about. And also I've seen just innumerable Reddit threads and people writing in about this, which is radio issues with advertising on radio on MLB Game Day Audio. If you're streaming radio broadcasts and Patreon supporter Michael is the most recent to write in about this,

but many people have pointed it out in the various online channels of Effectively Wild, which is that a couple of seasons ago, after MLB made a deal with Odyssey to handle the streaming of radio broadcasts, which was reported in mid-2021 as a multi-year agreement. So I don't know when that agreement expires, but Odyssey implemented dynamic ad insertion,

where instead of getting the sometimes sort of charming local ads on radio broadcasts, you now just get incredibly repetitive national ads over and over again, sometimes even just MLB promotions. But the problem is that often they do not actually line up well with the inning breaks. And so they cut off the end of innings and the start of innings. Sometimes you don't miss anything meaningful. It's just, you know, when you're recapping the hits and runs and errors in that inning before they actually toss it to the break, it just cuts off and immediately you're thrown into this jarring ad.

Sometimes though it actually does cut off game action, which is, yeah, it's quite galling. And you can find lots of Reddit threads, people complaining about just not the quantity of ads and the repetitiveness of the ads, but also the timing of the ads. So that has been a big problem too. And sometimes they're not even like getting revenue from promoting anything.

It's just, you know, MLB promoting itself and yet also cutting off parts of the product that it is promoting, which seems counterproductive. So I think that MLB has responded to that at various points and has said like they're aware of the issue or whatever. Nothing has changed as far as I know, but just saying that I am aware of that issue and I feel your pain and I also brought it up to them and I haven't gotten any explanation of that yet. But yeah, there's also like the Odyssey streams have been well behind, which if you're only

listening to the radio broadcast and it's a minute or two behind, maybe it doesn't bother you that much, maybe you don't even notice, but if you're trying to sync it up with the TV broadcast, then it's just all out of whack, or if you're following along at that or whatever, then it's just, it's you know, way off and maybe part of that is because of the dynamic ad insertion, which causes its own problem. So yeah, I mean, ads getting in the way, marring the product. We all, we know the drill here. We know that teams and leagues have to make revenue and it's a business and advertising is a necessary evil unless you're listening to Effectively Wild and you're entirely listener,

Patreon supported. Thanks to our Patreon supporters for sparing us all of these ills, but you can implement it in a less onerous way that doesn't interfere with the product you're paying for, and that would be nice. We might see even more of this kind of cash grab behavior as teams are short of revenue that they used to get from the broadcast deals that they used to have, and we've talked about that and we'll talk about it again. And MLB has taken over even more local broadcasts with an eye toward putting together some sort of a group package, even a

national package at some point. And I would welcome that. But if the revenue is decreasing, cause you're relying on individual people signing up to actually watch your team, instead of just kind of coasting along on the cable bundle and lots of people subsidizing that who didn't actually sign up to watch baseball. Well, if revenue is dipping because of that and you want to make it up somewhere else,

then one way I guess is to lard up your broadcast with even more ads that are even more annoying at times. But you know, just don't make it distracting in these specific ways, please. I think it would be a tragedy if we didn't get to know the personal injury lawyers in every MLB market. And so I hope there is still some amount of space because look, people need to know about the husband and wife law team.

They need to know. Now the Diamondbacks have to get into the postseason for that to be a thing, but you need to know. They the Diamond Bars have to get into the postseason for that to be a thing, but you need to know. They're here for you. They're not fake motorcycle liability lawyers. They're real ones. They're not just putting on a leather jacket for their commercials. The beef between different personal injury law firms is one of my favorite things. It is beautiful. We should have it in every metropolis. It is perfect and part of having a society. Okay, continue. My only other broadcast complaints are specific to TBS. People complain about Kostas making too much noise. I complain about the lack of noise on the TBS broadcast. It's so muted, the crowd noise.

Have you noticed? It's very loud on other broadcasters. If you're watching ESPN or FS1 or something, it must just be how they are micing up the stands and the fans. And I don't know if it's to avoid hecklers and audible comments from fans or something, but it just feels very removed from the action. And they'll be telling you, oh, it's so loud here. And it sounds like just a gentle,

it's like the little light noise machine that you might try to fall asleep to. You see people yelling and then you can't hear it. And I don't get the playoff atmosphere through the TBS broadcast. My other minor nitpick is that you might notice on the score bug, it's a small score bug and it's kind of confined to the upper left corner. And I'm okay with that. But one thing they do is that they have the count, but then they also have the

line score for the batter in that game up there. And so I often confuse those two when I look because it'll say the count is one and two, let's say, but then it'll also say that that batter is over two in that game and it, it looks the same, you know'll also say that that batter is O for two in that game. And it looks the same, you know, it looks like it's just O dash two or one dash two. And the line score in the game is more prominent to my eyes, at least it's the first thing I see. And so many times I have thought the count was O and two. And then I've realized, oh no, this guy is O for two in that game, but the count is entirely different. But I have to flick my eyes upward and to the left to see that.

And I don't know whether anyone else has run into that issue. Maybe this is a skill issue. Maybe I should just be paying closer attention to the game and then I would not lose track of the count. But I don't need to know that mid-plate appearance. I don't need to know what that guy has done in the game because presumably I've seen that when he first came up to the plate and you showed that to me, or I can look it up if I need to. And it's just not really that relevant most of the time that so-and-so is 0 for 2, right? I don't necessarily need to know

that mid-plate appearance, but I need to know the count. And those numbers are presented so similarly that I have often confused them. Maybe it's just me, but that's my helpful note. LS FLEMING The audio piece of it, I have noticed, I've noticed across broadcasts, it seems like they're muting big moments in particular, I think because they're worried about swears. CBT. Yeah, definitely that has happened too. LS FLEMING But it's overkill, the degree to which they're doing it. It's distracting. Look, I know that there are children watching and that they don't want to just let anything go. But I think that Fernando Tosca, East

Jr. can do a little swear as a treat when he hits a home run. Right? Like- Yeah. They should just have producer Shane on the bleep button or- There you go. ...Pito Anzo should say, I'm going to do as bare and then- Pito Anzo would say that. I just want to be clear. And I know that that says as much about me as it does about him. And maybe it doesn't say flattering things about me,

but he would say that. He would be like, I would like to alert you to the swear. And then he'd do it, you know? Okay, maybe we can finish with just a couple of followups, non-playoff related followups or news items. First, the Minnesota Twins may be sold. So the poll ads are exploring a sale of the Minnesota Twins.

They've owned this franchise for 40 years after the Steinbrenner's and Jerry Rynsdorf. This is the third longest tenured ownership group, still a family owned and run team here. They bought the Twins for $44 million back in 1984. That is, I think, $133 million in today's dollars. I think they're going to turn a tidy profit on that one, I think. You know, maybe 10 times that or probably much more than that even they're going to get if they do decide to sell this team. Of course, we have heard that the Nationals were exploring a sale.

We heard that the Angels were exploring a sale, and then they said, not so fast. You can do backsees on this announcement if you care to, but they have announced that they will be pursuing a sale. Twins fans are not broken up about this, I would say. And I guess the grass is always greener when it comes to, usually at least, because, you know, most people are probably upset with their ownership and especially if a team

gets to the point of wanting to sell, maybe things haven't been going so great. Maybe they haven't been investing in that team in the way that fans would have liked them to. Obviously that's the case for the twins and whether they have not been investing because they wanted to kind of keep the books clean with an eye toward a potential sale or whether they just don't really want to invest in their baseball team anymore. And that is both why they haven't spent and also why they have decided to sell.

But their current executive chair, Joe Polad, put out a statement about the fact that they're doing this. Joe Polad was grilled just a couple of weeks ago by Aaron Gleeman about payroll and why this ownership group hasn't spent more and hasn't followed up the exciting success of 2023 by investing the roster and actually paired the payroll down and ended up on the outside looking in just by a few games. Might have been avoided if they had made some signings, made some trades at the deadline, didn't do that.

So I think that is why Twins fans are feeling, okay, let's get some new blood in here. Let's have A-Rod buy this franchise. Maybe they're not saying that, but someone with deeper pockets than A-Rod, you hope, but you never know, of course. And so you hope the grass is greener, but then the new ownership group comes in and maybe it's meet the new boss same as the old boss or even worse at times. Not that I know anything about this particular situation, but yeah, you can never count on it being better, I guess, unless it's John Fisher in the A's, in which case it couldn't be worse.

I mean, I think it's useful for us to all keep in mind that things can always get worse, right? Got to grapple with that every single day. I guess I find it, refreshing is maybe the wrong word because you're right that this has been sort of started and stopped with other franchises, but like if you don't want to be in the game, you should get out of the game, you know? Get out of there. I don't have very strong feelings about their you should get out of the game. Get out of there. I don't have very strong feelings about their ownership group one way or the other. It's not like they've never spent, but they probably aren't spending as much as they could. None of them are.

Well, none of them who aren't the Dodgers. I don't really have a take about this in a vacuum because it's really hard to know what to think of it without having a sense of who a potential buyer is going to be. My instinct these days is to prefer the family ownership model to private equity goons, but the family ownership- But then you get Jerry Rindstorff. Exactly.

I was just about to say, but the family ownership model can be a disaster. So I don't know. I think you just have to sit uncomfortably. CB Yeah, well, we wish you luck, twins fans, I guess you could use some. And in other news about franchises that have not been sold after it was said that they would be the angels. So there was angels news. I know everyone's like, why haven't you talked about the angels yet in October here? Well, here we're getting around to it. Artie Moreno gave a rare interview to Jeff Fletcher of the Orange County Register. And he said that they're running, the Angels are going for it.

They have an eye toward contending in 2025 and they're coming off a dead last in the AL West finish, 63 and 99, most losses in franchise history, narrowly avoided having their first hundred loss season. They're the only franchise that has not to this point, which I guess is kind of to their credit, but only to a limited extent. And Moreno said that he has a goal

of making the playoffs in 2025. He said payroll is going up. So it's going to be somewhere probably between where it was in 2023 and where it fell to in 2024 post-Otani, which means that if you look at the amount of money that's coming off the books and expected arbitration raises, MLB trade rumors ran the numbers and suggested that they might have about $50 million to play with in payroll room this off season. And we know that the angels always put their payroll room to good use and spend efficiently on free agency. So

what I'm wondering is, can you even concoct a scenario where the angels do a Royals and they manage to pick themselves up off the mat and the Royals coming from their 56 win last place finish in 2023, adding 30 wins, one of the biggest jumps of all time and the biggest recovery to make the playoffs ever. Can the Angels recover? I guess they'd have less recovering to do than the Royals did because they won 63, that's more than 56. And you know, Mike Trout, this will be the year he's healthy. I don't want to go there, but is there anything that the angels could do? Because like the farm system is fairly fallow and Dead last in baseball by our reckoning.

Yeah. The worst in baseball by our reckoning. So it's not as if there's like a ton of help on the way, although the angels, you never know, they'll promote anyone and everyone at a moment's notice, but no top blue chippers who are knocking on the door here. So 50 million, I mean, that's a lot of money to throw around if you can get guys to go there, but is there enough rebound in that roster plus the potential additions that there's any way that this franchise will not just keep sort of stepping on rakes and tripping on its own feet and then we'll be right back here next year at this time saying,

yeah, we're going to contend. Because they always attempt to contend. I guess you can give Moreno that, like he's not the most miserly of owners. It's just that the Angels, you know, he certainly could have spent more and has been maybe more miserly than he should have been at certain times. But also the Angels just have had a lot of big ticket signings that backfired, some of which were ill-advised at the time, others of which just went wrong in ways that probably couldn't have been completely anticipated. So maybe one of these years? It'll be a decade since they last made the playoffs. I just wonder whether there's any world in which this could possibly be true. Like I guess, you know, we were semi-surprised that he kept Minasian around because one would

have thought that Minasian might have been on the chopping block. And I guess if they're not embarking on a rebuild, maybe that's why he's getting another crack at this thing. But, yeesh. Look, anything's possible, Ben. The range of human potential is vast. Part of what facilitated Kansas City's turnaround is that they had an MVP caliber season from Bobby Wood Jr. Let's construct an optimistic case for Angels fans. And let's use Kansas City as a blueprint to do that. So Kansas City's sort of depth across the board, particularly on the offensive side of the ball is pretty limited, right? You

have Bobby Wood Jr. He's incredible. Do you have an answer to Bobby Wood Jr. on the Angels? No, but like maybe Trout comes back healthier and don't actually like plays baseball and does so well. And I don't know, like he get one or two other guys who produce at a league average level. I mean, they have Neto, they have Shenuel, they have Ohapi, you know, those are some pretty good players. Ohapi is a good player. So like maybe there's a little something there you can't, you don't get a 10 and a half win

season but to quote everybody's favorite part of that movie, can recreate it in the aggregate, right? So maybe that exists for you. And I think the more optimistic thing from their perspective would be that, as I have said several times on the podcast, like the thing that I think really bolstered the Royals this year and propelled them to a playoff spot was that they really hit on their sort of mid-range starting signing. So we thought that the Lugo and the Waka of it all were going to be important from an innings reinforcing perspective, but wouldn't make all that big of a difference from a production

perspective. And that didn't end up being true. Those guys had great seasons, right? Whether tonight Michael Walker is going to be able to stem the tide and hold off elimination, we don't know, but they were very important for them. So maybe if you're an Angels fan, you can say, all right, Perry, can you go find this year's version of those guys? Because as we have discussed, outside of a couple of the top dudes, this isn't a particularly

good or deep free agent class, but maybe you go find those guys. Now here's the problem. They don't have a Cole Reagans. There aren't a lot of Cole Reagans around and they sure don't have one on their staff right now. So do I think it's likely? No, but I think that it's possible. Now, the other problem that they face is that even though, even though I think the powerhouses of the AL West are not what they were, Houston seems, even though

they had a great second half, more vulnerable than they've been in the past, like I think the West is a harder, do I think that? I think the West is still a harder division than the Central. I'm using that voice to show that I have a lack of conviction in my own assertion, but maybe you have a slightly harder time in the West than you do in the Central. Although you know what? Maybe that's just not true anymore, Ben. Maybe that's just not true. So anyway, is it possible? Yeah, sure. So many things are possible.

Is it likely? I don't know. I guess I appreciate if I wanted to say something nice about Artie Moreno, which I'm not super inclined to do on a normal day, but within this context I will. He does, in his way, want to know? He's willing to spend money. He has not demonstrated, or at least his lieutenants have not really demonstrated always the best track record with spending that money. Yeah. And he cheeps out on things that they don't amount to that much, like player development

and technology and broadcast. Broadcasters, scouts. I want to be quite clear that I think that this man does not run his franchise well. And I think that when it comes to a lot of the things that are both inexpensive and basic like treating people well stuff, he does not rate well on that score. This is not a pro Artie Moreno podcast by any stretch, but I think that one good thing you could say about him is that plenty of owners would look at the Angels track record of big signings and just say, I'm not doing that again. This never goes well when we do it. And he, at least at this juncture, doesn't seem inclined to be deterred from spending

money even though sometimes you get an Albert Pujols in the bargain. So that part is good, but this is not a class that I think has the guys to turn an entire franchise's fortunes around. Even if you're willing to spend big, I don't think that you're going to be able to accumulate enough talent that way to make a difference, at least not the kind of difference that Los Angeles would need or Anaheim as the case may be. Because the very best guys, like, Manzoto is not going to be an angel. That would be a wild turn of events though. There are a lot of teams that would be cool for him

to sign with. We don't have to answer this question right now, but I want you to contemplate it. What's the funniest team that he could sign with? You know, let's think about that as the- Yeah, take submissions. We'll return to that topic. What's the funniest team? And it doesn't have to be ha ha funny, although it can be. It can also be what? Funny, you know? I kind of feel like it might be the national stuff,

but that's just my gut feeling. Maybe that is the answer. That would be very funny if you had this like multi-team odyssey after turning down the extension. I am now rooting for that outcome, I think. I think that's what I want. I think I want Juan Soto to be like, I'm coming home, you guys. I'm coming home. Tell the world. The only other thing I'll say is that the Royals were pretty unfortunate in 2023. Like they were well below their expected record, which helped somewhat, I think, with their

increase. Like you would have expected a bounce back in the positive direction for them. And the Angels weren't so far below their Pythag or their base runs, maybe a few wins at most. So I don't know that you can count on that much positive regression coming their way just through having better luck than they had this year. So yeah, it's a tall order, but you uh, you know, it's a bold strategy. We'll see if it works out for them.

Last thing, just, uh, an update on team doctor news. So I talked about the, uh, TJ three, the triple Tommy John, which was, uh, announced with great fanfare by Dr. Christopher Ahmad, who is the team doctor for the Yankees. And we had some questions and perhaps I still do, but some of those questions, I guess, were addressed by an appearance Ahmad did on Buster Olney's podcast, the ESPN baseball tonight show. And I listened to a short segment where Ahmad explained to Buster what exactly this TJ3 business is.

And essentially Ahmad, he said, you know, before he was a surgeon coming out of college, he was a mechanical engineer. And so he sort of thinks of the elbow in these structural terms and what can we do to fortify the thing. And so the TJ3, the three things are, A, there's the native ligament repair. So the original damaged ligament, the UCL, they don't just leave it in there

and don't do anything to it. They don't remove it, but they repair it. So they patch it up so that it can help shore up the elbow and it participates in the overall strength. And it also heals faster than the reconstructive ligament that you transplant from elsewhere which then has to like, you know, get vascularity like it has to be wired up by the body to get a blood supply and it has to morph from a tendon to a ligament and all of that.

So step one, you repair the native ligament with a suture material and an anchor. Step two, is you put in the internal brace. So that's the internal brace that we've heard so much about in other surgeries, which Ahmad compared to a seatbelt in a car, and it's coated in collagen, so that the body doesn't reject it. Quote, the ligament loves it. That's what he said. doesn't reject it. Quote, the ligament loves it. That's what he said. So it protects the ligament in the healing and also helps strengthen it in the future supposedly and eases in the recovery, smoother recovery, less soreness, etc. Then number three, the third step, the triple, is the ligament reconstruction. So the native ligament is fairly fragile, even if you repair it, it's small.

He said it has the width of a pencil eraser, the length of a return key on a keyboard, an enter key, and it's as thick as a couple of credit cards. So you don't wanna rely solely on that thing. That's what gets you in trouble in the first place. So you take a tendon from the forearm or the knee, that's the usual kind of, you see how reconstruction, it's a bigger, stronger ligament. So you've got the native ligament repaired, you've got the internal brace and you've got this transplanted ligament

and all three of these things combine to hopefully be better than any one or two of the other solutions. And he said he has been performing the surgery for more than a year now. And so I don't know why it's kind of just coming to light or being publicized. Well, because you probably had to make sure that like... That it wasn't causing people to turn into zombies or something. Yeah, or like it didn't turn your elbow into goo or that the seatbelt didn't come unclicked. You're gonna regret putting that in there. I just want to say that if it were up to me, our life expectancy as a species would be

a lot shorter because I am just so squeamish about this stuff. I'm like, I don't know what's going in there. I guess your shit doesn't work for the rest of your life. Sorry. No, no, don't. No. Mm-mm. Mm-mm. going in there? I guess your sh** doesn't work for the rest of your life. Sorry. Like, no, no, don't. Well, so it's all three. It's just kind of throwing everything at the wall and hopefully something sticks. And he said that he performed 150 TJ3 procedures just between this January and this June. And he said so far the rehabs have been smooth, but he acknowledged that they just don't know yet

about the durability because it just, we don't, it hasn't, not enough time has elapsed, we don't know. So this is all sort of provisional. He thinks that it's going to be more durable just because there are just more structural reinforcements here, but hasn't really been proven yet. I guess there's no reason to think it would be worse, but yeah, that's the story with TJ3. Now, listener, Patreon supporter, Sarah wrote in to note that Dr. Ahmad does have a financial relationship with this company called Arthrex,

which makes like a Tommy John surgery construction kit, which sounds like you send away for it and you can assemble a UCL yourself. Like Naked Logs? Yeah. Arthrex, it's part of the internal brace. It's this collagen doohickey, this Arthrex collagen coated tape that is used in this procedure. So, I mean, it's not a secret,

like it's public knowledge that he's a faculty surgeon for Arthrex, but he does presumably have some sort of financial stake in this procedure or that part of the procedure catching on. And sometimes you do have kind of off the books kind of Arthrex itself, in fact, a few years ago was forced to settle a kickback case for 16 million because there were claims that it had paid a orthopedic surgeon millions of dollars in kickbacks to use and recommend its products. And yeah, and there was a like a whistleblower lawsuit about this. So sometimes, you know, it's not all above board and doctors are like, you know, it's a pay to play, pay to operate

sort of situation. This is how we get Patrick Radden Keefe to write a book about baseball, by the way. Yeah, so I don't know that there's anything untoward happening here. Again, it's like, you know, I don't know that he acknowledges it at all times, but it is, if you Google, like you can find

that he has this relationship with this company. Yeah, not entirely, at least. So that's something to consider, I suppose. But, not entirely at least. So, so that's something to consider, I suppose. But, uh, you know, hopefully like any doctor he said, trying to do no harm here and hopefully he, he helps. Yeah. I mean, you know, I'm sure he believes in it and it would be great if it, you know, like if you had a better Tommy John, that'd be great. I don't know that it should involve putting a seatbelt in your elbow, which is my takeaway from your description. Yeah. So we'll see. I'll link know that it should involve putting a seatbelt in your elbow, which is my takeaway

from your description. Click, click, click. So we'll see. I'll link to that interview if anyone wants to listen, but wanted to follow up on that. And then the other team doctor update. So there's a team doctor for the Rangers. He's been their doctor for about 20 years, Keith Meister, the Keith Meister. That's how I say it to myself, but it's not,

it's just Keith Meister. Now I'm thinking of the, I'm Mr. Keith Meister, I'm Mr. Son. Yeah. Well, he's been very vocal about the elbow epidemic and the UCL scourge. And he has talked about this before and I'm totally with him on wanting to do something about this because he and these other doctors are like, well, we don't have time to perform any other surgeries because it's incredible how many of these procedures they perform. I mean, they're like averaging one a day and they don't do them every day. So they're like stacking them. This guy has like two operating rooms set up.

So he's like going back and forth and his team preps one elbow. And then he's like, all right, you're ready for me. He comes in, he does his suturing and slicing. And then he then moves on to the other elbow when it's ready. Right. And it's all this kind of choreographed routine, this conveyor belt and elbow assembly line. And, you know, I guess most destroyed elbows by pitching are like each other, and it's sort of the same procedure with a couple quirks, but they have to do so many of them now because so many elbows are injured. And he's talked about not only the quantity of the injured elbows, but also

the quality, like they just look like they've been blown up in a way that they didn't used to, and he identifies some of the same culprits that most people do and that I concur with, you know, the max effort pitching and everything, but his prescriptions I don't always agree with. And I trust him when it comes to repairing elbows, but I don't know that that necessarily gives you perfect expertise and insight into how to prevent the elbow injury. You know, I think it gives you more insight than the typical lay person, but you might not know how to prevent them even if you know how to fix them. But there's a good long in-depth profile of Meister in D Magazine by Mike Pelucci.

I read the whole thing and it's worth a read, but it's gotten a lot of attention really for just one particular paragraph. It is about some of the remedies that Meister has suggested here. Now, one of the culprits that he pinpoints is the sweeper. He's extremely anti-sweeper. Yeah, a lot of, yeah, this has gotten a lot of traction. Yeah. He just feels like spin is the devil here and that's what's causing it. He's anti crack down on sticky stuff because he thinks, you know, a sentiment that Tyler Glassnow expressed years ago that you just have to grip the ball harder to compensate and that leads to more strain.

But he also thinks that the pursuit of spin and these like designer lab designed pitches are what's causing this. There are a lot of other experts on the other side of things who disagree with that, including some I trust and have cited here to say, it's not so much about the pitch type and you know, you get these moral panics about curve balls or sliders or sweepers or whatever, and that they don't think it's so much about that. It's just about how hard you throw and how often you throw it and how efficiently you throw it mechanically. And you know, the sweeper, the spin rate on a sweeper isn't really on average, much higher than just your generic slider. Now a sweeper goes slower and so you would expect a lower spin rate because of that. And so I guess spin efficiency wise, I mean, adjusted for velocity, it does spin

more. But I have read other research that suggests that really it's just, you know, the harder you throw, the worse for you and a sweeper you throw a little less hard than a typical slider. And also if you're throwing lots of sweepers, you're probably throwing those in place of fastballs. We've seen a shift toward off speed stuff and that maybe that might not be a bad thing. So opinions differ very much on the sweeper side of things. Who knows, he could be right.

He says he can tell based on looking inside the elbow, what pitch you throw, like that there's a difference in the type of tear based on what you're throwing. Again, like, you know, he documents all his surgeries. There's a lot in here about how he takes lots of pictures and has a big database and an archive. So I don't know whether he has actually established that that's the case that I can predict that but he says that's the case

but the other thing he said here aside from De-emphasizing sweepers, which the Rangers don't throw a lot of sweepers now And it's not clear whether that is because of Meister or not But he is very heavily involved in their operations and he's advised them not to have their pitchers throw sweepers, and he points to Dane Dunning and Cody Bradford, these relatively soft tossing pitchers, and says, well, you can do it, you don't have to be a special outlier. Of course, those aren't top of the rotation type guys, but they exist. Anyway, he suggested that one thing you could do is to ban foul balls on two strike counts.

And this is not just idle speculation because he there's a, an MLB task force investigating the injury epidemic and all the Tommy Johns, which I've written about and he's on it and he has proposed a rule to ban foul balls on two strike counts. it and he has proposed a rule to ban foul balls on two strike counts and his reasoning is that it would cut down on pitch counts so you just have to throw fewer pitches which would do less damage to arms and that it would also maybe incentivize hitters to put more balls in play and shorten games because you know we do have more foul balls than ever and foul balls can be boring.

I'm with him on that. I share his goals, but I don't like this idea about banning foul balls on two strike counts. I'm pretty sure it's been an effectively wild hypothetical at some point because everything has, but if you do this, yeah, it would lead to fewer pitches and I guess less stress on arms in theory, although maybe you just would have your better pitchers throwing more anyway and they'd just be throwing max effort at all times and they just go deeper into games, which maybe would be better from one perspective. But this would swing things in favor of pitchers to quite a considerable degree. I mean, if you are done, if you foul a ball off on two

strikes as if you're bunting on two strikes and you strike out and that's that, we're going to get a lot more strikeouts and we have quite enough strikeouts as it is. So you're putting hitters at a greater disadvantage at a time when they're already fighting for their professional lives here. So this, I think, is too drastic a solution. Yeah, I understand the sentiment and the goal, but it does feel like it tips the balance too far. It also like, does it start to make baseball just kind of unrecognizable a little too much? You know what I mean?

Like it feels like too, in addition to whatever balance there needs to be between hitting and pitching, it just feels like it makes it look too different than what we're used to, which might be, I don't know. Yeah, it's still three strikes you're out, but it's just that the third strike comes quicker. I think about those, I don't know, I know that foul balls can be boring, but sometimes it's like this pitched battle, you know, it's like he fouls it off. He fouls it off. And yeah, yeah, literally. Yeah, yeah. And so I like that, you know?

And you get this moment sometimes when you get those really long at bats where they cut to the face of the hitter. He can't believe he's still in it. You cut to the face of the pitcher and sometimes they're exasperated, but sometimes they're like kind of amused. Like, how have I been throwing 20 pitches to this same stinking guy?

I don't know. I wouldn't want to lose that. It is funny to say, like, Cody Bradford and Dane Dunning. That gets to the crux of the problem though, right? Like, yeah, sure. You could have a league of Dane Dunnings. Is that what you though, right? It does, yes. Like, yeah, sure, you could have a league of Dan Dunnings. Is that what you want to watch? Sorry, Dan, like no offense to you personally, but like, do you really want the Cody Bradford

League? I don't know. I know. It's like, this is the tension that is at the root of like trying to solve this problem. I am all for the idea of, yeah, there are probably some command pitchers out there who could make major league wrestlers who have that potential who are being passed over because they don't throw super hard and they don't lend themselves to the current max effort model.

I think there's something to that, but also to be an elite pitcher without that sort of stuff, it's tough and you could do it for a while. You could do the Kyle Hendricks kind of thing until something slips and then suddenly the decline is pretty precipitous. But yeah, you start messing with fouls and you could do something to compensate and try to level things off. Okay, we're giving pitchers this edge of you hit a foul on two strikes, you're out. Well, maybe we shorten things to you walk on three balls or something. You could start trying to even things out, but then you're getting even more drastic and unrecognizable. And it really would make a difference. I think back to the foul strike rule, which was adopted in 1901 by the National League, which counted

foul balls as strikes against the batter because under the foul strike rule, you're charged with a strike when you swing and hit a foul ball, unless you already have two strikes against you. And this was adopted because hitters at that time were just fouling off balls indefinitely. And it wasn't doing any harm to their chances. Like it didn't even count as a strike. They just kept fouling off and fouling off. And pitchers didn't throw as hard those days. So you could do that kind of at will. And so they counted those as strikes until you get to two strikes.

And there was a difference because the NL adopted that in 1901 and the AL didn't until 1903. And that's one reason why the AL was a far higher scoring league for the first couple years there. Maybe it was because the AL was brand new too, but also there was like a run per game difference between those two leagues. And then that's one of the factors maybe when both leagues implemented this that gave rise to the dead ball era. Also the ball was dead that probably played a part, but you start messing with the balls and strikes as often happened in the formative decades of baseball history,

but hasn't happened for a while now because it's worked fairly well. And yeah, this is just not the button I would press. I'm with the Keithmeister on doing something here, but this is not the way that I would want to do it. The button you would press would, no, because you unclick a seatbelt by pushing the button. So that's not gonna, don't want to push that button either. That's the wrong button. Once the seat in your in your elbow Cuz that's how surgery works also medicine. Yeah, we are pro-seat belts. Oh, yeah pro-seat belts Everyone should wear your seat belt. Wear your seat belt. And hey, hey New Yorkers. Wear your seat belt in your cab

What are you doing? What is this? Normal traffic rules don't apply it tois, Meg. How did you not know this? How would you know about normal traffic rules, Ben? What do you even know about normal traffic? I've been in cars. I've been a passenger. I've had to fight that impulse myself. It's like, when you get in a cab, it's like, well, this is a professional though. Cabs never get an accent. Never. Famously, never. No, you're safe from all traffic related injuries when you're in a cab, which famously is going super fast and dipping in and out of traffic because the meter's running.

You'd think you'd want to go slower because the meter is running, but they want to pick up another fare. Right. But yeah, I was that person for years where it's like, I'm in a cab though. Like, you know, I don't have to buckle my seatbelt. I mean, it's a cab. No, I don't do that anymore. I buckle up. Yeah. Flying along the West Side Highway, unsafe at any speed and just like, do do do, seatbelt, why would I do that? Put on your seatbelt. What's wrong with all of you? My God.

Buckle up hits the law. All right. Well, we send our best wishes to anyone who is dealing with the after effects of Hurricane Milton. We hope you have weathered the storm better than the shredded roof of the trap. Fortunately no one was injured there, but for baseball fans that was a particularly apocalyptic sight which drove home how deadly and disruptive and costly that storm has been. Again, we hope you're all staying safe. And back to the less serious subject of sports, as the temporarily unretired John Sterling said,

Ball game over! American League Division Series over! Yankees win! Theeeeee Yankees win! With the Royals defeat, we're now down to two surviving AL Central teams, and soon there will be only one. But not yet, we've got another Game 5 coming up on Saturday between the Guardians and the Tigers, because in a back and forth affair, Cleveland fended off Detroit to win a one run game. And look, I don't want to be a broken record complaining about ads and nitpicking TBS by the way, but this is more than a nitpick, this is truly outrageous. I read a quote last time from someone who works on local broadcasts and said that they sometimes can't zoom in as much as they'd like to because they have to

get all of the ads behind Home Plate in the frame. This was the most egregious example of that I've seen on the Guardians Tigers TPS broadcast. Now I know the centerfield camera in Comerica is not directly behind the pitcher and Home Plate, so it's usually slightly off center, but in this case it was also zoomed out because the billboards behind home plate in Detroit are not that close to the plate, and so to get them both in the frame, both booking.com ads for most of the game, they had to pull back so much that the pitcher and the pitcher's mound and the batter were on the left side of the screen, and there was this vast swath of screen real estate to the right that had absolutely no business being on the screen except for the fact that they had to get the second identical booking.com ad in there.

So it just felt off kilter. It felt unbalanced. We weren't even getting a different second ad in the shot. It was just such a clear example of compromising the quality of the broadcast to cram another ad in there. It really looked so strange. I'll link to what I'm talking about on the show page and I encourage you to check it out if you weren't watching.

What is happening here? Please you can put as many ads in the regular shot as you like, but when you're actually changing the framing of the action to squeeze an extra ad in there, it's just extremely distracting. I'm as mad as hell and I'm not gonna take this anymore. Actually, I probably am because I wanna watch the baseball games, but I am gonna complain about it on my podcast.

One other thing, and this is a nitpick, but hey, we're a pro nitpicking podcast. Listener and Patreon supporter Tex responded to our discussion of the standard for replay review by saying, to engage in legal pedantry, redundant I know, about the replay review standard, I find it annoying that MLB applies the clear and convincing standard to replay review when in law that is a standard applied to decisions made by the trial judge slash jury, in this case the umpire. At trial you're weighing different presentations of the facts

and the standards of review help the adjudicator think through how to balance competing versions of evidence. In a criminal trial this means the prosecutor hasn't met their burden unless they establish guilt beyond reasonable doubt. But in a civil case, usually the plaintiff just has to establish liability by preponderance of the evidence, which just means it's more likely than not. Clear and convincing sits between those two. The legal doctrines that are more analogous to replay would be appellate standards of review.

The core concept here is not that you are weighing all the facts, but you're deciding how much deference to give the initial decision maker in their interpretation of the facts. So the appellate standards of review use different terms. There's de novo, which is showing no deference to the initial decision. So the replay umpire has free reign to overturn without regard to the field umpire's decisions. And then there's the clearly erroneous standard. The replay umpire may overturn even if they think the field umpire had a basis for the decision, it's just that the replay umpire sees a firm reason to overturn.

So Tex is making the pedantic point that we should refer to the existing standard as clearly erroneous, not clear and convincing, because this is more of an appellate situation than a trial judge or jury one. Hey, always receptive to a pedantic point. Also receptive to support on Patreon, which you can provide by going to patreon.com slash effectively wild and signing up to pledge some month or yearly amount to help keep the podcast going, help us stay ad free and get yourself access to some perks as have the following five listeners, Chris McDonald, George, You Are Jasper,

DfTuttle, and Alec Marlega, thanks to all of you. Patreon perks include access to the Effectively Wild Discord group for patrons only, monthly bonus episodes, playoff live streams, discounts on merch and ad-free fan crafts memberships, personalized messages, signed books, prioritized email answers, and so much more. Check out all the offerings at patreon.com slash

effectively wild. If you are a Patreon supporter, you can message us through the Patreon site. If not, you can contact us via email. Send your questions and comments and intro and out show themes to podcast at fan graphs.com. You can rate, review and subscribe to effectively wild on iTunes and Spotify and other podcast platforms.

You can join our Facebook group at Facebook.com slash group slash effectively wild. You can find the effectively wild subreddit at r slash effectively wild. And you can check the showively Wild subreddit at r slash Effectively Wild, and you can check the show page at FanGraphs or the episode description in your podcast app for links to the stories and stats we cited today. Thanks to Shane McKeon for his editing

and production assistance. We'll be back with one more episode before the end of the week, which means we will talk to you soon. A baseball podcast, analytics and stats With Ben and Meg, from Fangrass Effective rewind Effective rewind

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