Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 556: Andrew Friedman Makes His Move, and the Royals Roll On

Episode Date: October 15, 2014

Ben and Sam discuss the Dodgers’ hiring of Andrew Friedman and the Royals’ latest postseason victory.

I'll be a man with lots of money, not a poor boy. I'll buy her things, she'll call me honey. Not a poor boy, a man with money. A man with money, a man with money, a man with money, a man with money, a man with money. Man with money, man with money, man with money Good morning and welcome to episode 556 of Effectively Wild, the daily podcast from Baseball Perspectus presented by the Play Index at BaseballReference.com I am Ben Lindberg of Grantland.com, joined by Sam Miller of Baseball Perspectus, hello Hello

Hi, we're going to talk probably about some baseball. There were two more one-run games, of course. There was another extra inning game, of course. It's getting almost eerie at this point. It is. Do we have an updated count? I saw one on Twitter, and I am finding it now. Matt Myers of MLB.com noted that we have now had 13 one-run games this postseason, which is evidently tied for the most ever in a postseason. He did not say which postseason had as many, but of course there are more games now,

but we are only part of the way through the LCS, so there is a pretty good chance that that record will be broken. And that doesn't include extra inning games that have been decided. And it also doesn't include the 6-4 game that was decided in the Royals' final at bat, which in the ninth inning, which is obviously just as close. against Royals final at bat, which in the ninth inning, which, you know, is obviously just as close. Yes, even most of the games that did not end with a one-run margin were pretty close until some point late in the game. Well, I don't know about most, but many when I did my thing.

Oh, yeah. There's only been like five. Right, yeah. Like literally, no exaggeration, there's only been like five. Yeah, I'm thinking of the one that was a blowout, like the Tigers-Orioles game that ended up being 12-3 and was like 4-3 in the eighth or something. So there were some of those. But yeah, it continues to be a pretty incredible run for everyone and particularly for the Royals.

Ben, I have a question for you. I know this is really about our show and who we are and what we are. And I'm not sure where this show falls. I know that we are generally anti-hot take. So this seems like something that would be easy to have a hot take on. But on the other hand, we are pro talking about things that basically don't matter as though they might have some sabermetric significance. So what do you make of the t-shirts? T-shirts? The Royals taunting t-shirts. Are you up to date on this?

I am not. Well, okay. So so first you know that uh gerard dyson taunted i guess you would say taunted the orioles by saying that uh they didn't expect the series to go back to baltimore which is i guess a fine thing to say but also that but that he didn't think that the orioles expected which is a taunt that's a a taunt. I think he's just, I mean, he, I think that's his kind of default attitude, which, I mean, I find it endearing. But when I talked to him about your Don Aventura, when I was writing about your Don Aventura,

he threw in a comment about how he could steal off your Don Aventura, which he just felt that he had to mention because he's a self-confident guy. Right, and so that didn't raise, we didn't have to talk about that because that's just Dyson. However, today in his post-game press conference, Jeremy Guthrie wore a taunting t-shirt that said, it was a blue shirt and it said with the Orioles logo for the O, it said, these O's ain't royal.

Oh, okay, I've seen that phrase. I think that was like a Twitter hashtag or something. Very taunty. And anyway, so of course, this is hot take zone. I don't have a hot take on whether they're taunting or not, whether they shouldn't or whether they're doing a disgrace to the game. However, they know, like they are very aware of what they're doing a disgrace to the game. However, they know, like they are very aware of what they're doing. They are

not dumb. They know that they have only won three games and that this is going to be a terrible, terrible jinx if they lose. They know that this is going to be noticed by the Orioles. They know that the unwritten rules of the game tell you not to do this sort of thing and that

if you do, they know that it's going to be up in the clubhouse and they know that the unwritten rules of the game tell you not to do this sort of thing, and that if you do, they know that it's going to be up in the clubhouse, and they know that the culture of the game promotes the idea that this motivates the opposing team. So they are doing this, at least Guthrie is doing this, fully aware of what he's doing, right? I mean, he is breaking protocol, and I have to assume he's not doing it frivolously. So when we talk about the Royals and we talk about their strategies and their tactics, should we start talking about the getting in their head factor? Does this require metrics now? Is this the new

clubhouse chemistry? Am I going to write a magazine article for ESPN the magazine in 18 months about teams trying to quantify the getting in their head factor? Maybe so, but what about waking the sleeping dog? Isn't that, I mean, is the intimidation? That's old school. We're talking about the new school. The new school is getting in their head. You and your weird RBIs and you're waking the sleeping dog. I'm talking about modern baseball. Maybe so. Maybe if you're on a 7-0 run and you can't seem to lose, maybe you have so much intimidation going for you that at that point

you're better off pressing the advantage and going for the complete intimidation. There's not as much downside to the sleeping dog effect. I have to assume that the Royals are pretty clear-eyed about all of this. They have to know that they're not actually the strongest team in history. They have to know that the Orioles aren't actually an inferior team. They're too young to know anything. That's why they're doing so well. Jeremy Guthrie!

Jeremy Guthrie. Jeremy Guthrie. This is not Terrence Gore wearing this T-shirt size extra small team's T-shirt. This is Jeremy Guthrie. He's the veteran. He's the worst player on the team, Ben. Yes. He's terrible. And he's wearing a taunting t-shirt against a superior team

and well this is still his first trip to the postseason he doesn't know how things work in october i think that this i think that this has to be deliberate i think this has to be uh something that they are doing as a deliberate strategy. Yeah, maybe. I don't know. Maybe it's just the character of the team is particularly suited to this sort of thing. I wonder whether there will be a public backlash or whether the Royals are just so much fun that no one cares. There's already a public. Well, the public backlash. Here's the public backlash. And I don't know if this represents the public. This represents the 105 people I follow. But this is what always happens when a nice, clean-cut Midwest boy does something like this.

It's always, oh, imagine if Puig had done it. And it just becomes a whole new referendum on Puig haters. And it just becomes this thing about how nobody appreciates Puig. Puig is trending right now with this. So that's what the backlash is going to be. That's why he's the face of baseball. All right. So we will take a brief detour into hot stove.

This is Matt Sussman tweeting about this. Quote, honey, do you want your usual four and two-thirds innings is better than none t-shirt? Camera zooms in on Jeremy Guthrie. Not tonight. Everyone listening should follow Matt Sussman on Twitter because he is one of the best in baseball at it. He's the best on Twitter. That is not an exaggeration. He's the best on Twitter. That is not an exaggeration. He is the best on Twitter.

I've said before that if I could only follow two people on Twitter, he would be the second one I would follow. In fact, if I could only follow those two, or I could follow all 103 others, I would choose the two. Yeah, I can't argue with that. You are not one of the two. No, I shouldn't be. Good.

Okay, so yes, brief detour into hot stove talk or something close to hot stove talk. Because Andrew Friedman is now the president of baseball operations of the Dodgers, he has gone from the prototypical small market team to the archetypical one to the archetypical huge market team. There have been plenty of fun facts bandied about, about how Andrew Friedman has never had a payroll as large as the Dodgers payroll commitment several years from now. And so it's an interesting move. And you wrote about it at BP. And there has been lots of talk about what an Andrew Friedman on a big market team will look like. And I'm fascinated

to find out. I'm sort of, as someone with no rooting interest in either team, I'm looking forward to following the new Andrew Friedman regime because the Rays won had gotten sort of stale. Now we're going to get to see something completely different and see what Andrew Friedman will do with all the money that he probably has wished that he's had at times over the past several years. And so you wrote about what you think that will look like or what we might see that look like in the next couple of years. Would you care to summarize? I guess my summary for what it will look like is that it won't look that different. That there's not a lot of difference that, well first of all,

that he is not entering an organization like the 2000 and, what was it 2006 or 2005 that he took over the race? 6 was Madden's first year. Did he hire Madden his first year? I think so. Okay, so it's not like the 2006 race where it is an, so it's not like the 2006 Rays, where it is an organization that literally does not have the internet,

as John Kerry reported. So he's going into an organization that has already done a lot of work to structure themselves in an intelligent way, particularly in scouting and player development. But there are plenty of intelligent people in that front office. They've been building good departments. When we think of a team's front office, we usually think of their general manager. And Ned Colletti is nobody's idea of an advanced progressive general manager,

but he's just one in a large organization. And his boss, Stan Kasten, in a lot of ways is very progressive and very intelligent and, of course, built the nationals that have been, in a lot of ways, built the nationals that are so good right now. He built that front office. So it's not as though he's going into an organization where he's going to be able to really put his stamp on everything or where he'll even want to.

A lot of the hard work is already done. Yeah, I mean, the payroll commitments, as I mentioned, are huge. It's like $200 million almost for next year, and then it doesn't really decline much for the next few years after that it's like 170 160 because they have those huge long-term contracts so it'll be interesting to see how much he even can do really uh or how active they will be because without trading some of those giant contracts they're already at pretty high numbers going a few years into the future. Yeah.

But then the other thing, and I don't know if I made this point, but Grant Brisby made this point really well in his write-up. The things that we associate with big market teams are not the things that require a lot of intelligence. Like a little bit, and I think as I put it, he'll adopt some of the big market tactics while shaving off the 10% of those tactics that are gristle. But for the most part, when you're looking at how to spend your $300 million in the offseason and there's a $200 million free agent there in front of

you, it's like Ruben Amaro and Theo Epstein basically look at that free agent the same way. For the most part, there's not a lot of information advantage that a smart team can get out of it. You sign that guy because you have the money and you sort of convince yourself that you need him this year and you know it's going to be bad at the end of it and you just hope it's not too bad. And the other thing about those moves is that

kind of the margin between what we think of as a good price for the guy and what he might sign for is really small, but the margin between what could happen on the low end and what could happen on the high end is massive. And so we end up arguing over like these $20 million margins over like what would or wouldn't have been a good price for Josh Hamilton. And then he's either 30 wins better than that or is replacement level for five years. Yeah. The big market teams, GMs never win those rankings that people make of like the most efficient spenders among GMs where they rank GMs by dollars per war, you know, how many wins they got out of the money that they spent. The big market teams, even smart ones who win a lot, never show up at the very top of those

rankings. It's always Friedman or Bean or someone because they don't have the ability to sign those huge deals that often in the later years don't work out so well, or at least you've gotten the surplus from the front end of the deal, and then you have to deal with the back end. And so there's some dead weight always. Friedman never really had the ability to carry much dead weight, and now he does. So what I did identify, almost as an afterthought of the piece, of sort of three places where I thought a Friedman regime might act or might be slightly different than the Dodgers have been. One, they've been, in a lot of ways, a rotating manager over the last two decades.

They've had a lot of them. They haven't been great ones. They've generally, in a lot of cases, have hired managers who were kind of big celebrities before they got hired. And based on his record with the Rays, based on what we know about his manager with the Rays, I think we can assume that the manager that he hires will be considered an extension of the front office, that he will not be somebody who is outside the front office the way that a Joe Torre or a Don Mattingly are, but will be kind of his own liaison to the club, which is what a manager should be. And also, I think that it's, I would say it's safe to assume that whoever he

hires to be manager, assuming, of course, that Don Mattingly is replaced sometime soon, which I kind of think he will be. I think that the person he hires next will probably be there for as long as he's there, just as he and Joe Madden coexisted for a decade in somewhat unlikely ways. So that's one thing. I think that you can probably, well, it's just speculation, but based on his time in Tampa Bay, I think that Friedman, I think that what we see with big market teams a lot is that they put a lot of value at the top of their roster, so they want to get guys like Albert Pujols and Josh Hamilton,

who cost a lot, but that's your big priority. You go into the offseason, and you sort of sometimes see this, where not a lot of moves are made until a couple of the big guys go off the board, because teams are kind of starting from the top of their roster and then seeing who they can get to fill those spots and then building from there down. And I think with Friedman, and I think we've seen with some other GMs who we consider similar to Friedman, they kind of build from the bottom up.

They start with the idea that they're going to need 35 good players to make it through a season. And it's not really worth signing a good guy in the first spot if it costs you your 35th, 34th, and 33rd spots. So I would expect to see slightly fewer huge market signings. Not none, certainly, but slightly fewer. And to see a bit more depth. I think that, for instance, you'll see a team that has, well, I would expect.

Justin Turner and Scott Binslake. I mean, well, Justin Turner was really good. I know, that's what I mean. Yeah, it's not like they expected Justin. It's hard to say it'll be different because Justin Turner got them through the season and Scott Binslake got them through the first half, but not that they were expecting them to. And meanwhile,

I don't want to say, Oh, well they'll probably invest in the bullpen because they invested a ton in the bullpen. And I thought those guys were going to be good. And there were reasons to think that they would be good. But yeah, basically.

And I, I mean, in a lot of ways, the Dodgers have signed almost everybody they could. So they've had depth over the last few years and it broke down for reasons other than not planning. But anyway, that's another thing. I think that you'll see, you know, I guess just a nod to the Tampa Bay style of building with some really savvy, smaller signings

and with a lot more of an emphasis on positional flexibility and that kind of thing than you've seen from the Dodgers or than you normally see from big market teams. And the third thing is very specific. A.J. Ellis is beloved, but he can't frame at all. I think it's safe to say that Friedman likes a framer. And so it seems to me that the Dodgers signing Russell Martin is the most obvious thing that will happen in the next 12 months.

Like, more obvious than you having a birthday in the next 12 months is Russell Martin signing with the Dodgers. I wanted to find a better, more splashy acquisition via trade. I proposed, jokingly, Puig for Luke Roy as a possibility. But I think that it's just going to be Russell Martin. That'll be interesting because one of the first things that came out of Dodgers' camp after the end of the season, after they were eliminated, was Clayton Kershaw advocating for bringing A.J. Ellis back,

and you can kind of understand why. They came up together, and they're friends, and Ellis has been the primary catcher for the last few seasons. And those have been good seasons for the Dodgers and for Kershaw. But maybe he just doesn't know what it's like to throw to someone who is better. I mean, maybe Ellis does things that we're not giving him credit for. Maybe he's a great game caller, but he doesn't do very well in the framing stats. You're right. And so I would guess that since Clayton Kershaw is signed

forever, he will get over the departure of AJ Ellis. And the first time he throws to Russell Martin, he will be satisfied with that arrangement. Just got it, by the way, way ben just got the t-shirt just got the joke oh these o's ain't royals yeah just got it so you thought it was just a not a clever slogan i mean i assumed that there was some reason for it but i didn't quite pick up the rhyme. And you mentioned in your Friedman article the Molina arrangement. And so I guess that's kind of the difference. The Rays had their good framing catcher, but they had a framing catcher who had all kinds of warts and was a terrible hitter and couldn't play every day and wasn't a good blocker. And now they can just buy at the top of the market, sort of. a terrible hitter and couldn't play every day and wasn't a good blocker.

And now they can just buy at the top of the market, sort of. They can get the good framer who is also a good hitter and a good blocker and durable and does everything well. So they don't have to piece together their Hannigan-Molina arrangement where they're getting something good out of it, but because there's so much bad associated with it, now they can just get the best of all worlds. Yeah. But, anyway,

I answered your question, but I don't think it's the most compelling question. The real summary of my piece, largely, was that Friedman as a hire means a lot more for what it says than for what it actually changes. And what it says is that you already had a team that was interested in all the things that Friedman represents. And that's the most important thing. knew that they had pursued Friedman, offered Friedman everything that Friedman had ultimately

accepted, pursued him just as aggressively as they did, but that at the last minute he had decided that he didn't want to leave Tampa, in a way, that would be 90% of the battle. Like, just showing me that would be pretty impressive. And I think we already knew that the Dodgers as an organization had made great strides since the sale. I think Stan Kasten is great. He's one of the few people that I would choose to head my team if I had one. Very short list. And they'd invested in a lot of international scouting and a lot of player development. And so there was already reasons to think that the Dodgers were getting smart. And I hate to use that phrase, but that's what we talk about.

That's what we say. And between that and their financial advantage and the fact that they have already put together a pretty good system that's getting better and better and should be, I mean, it's probably going to be an elite system over the next few years, I would guess, despite the disadvantages of being a big market team. I forget what I was going to say, but they were already going to be really good. And all signs were pointing at them being really good. And this is a kind of a big confirmation of that. And it kind of amps up the level of how good we think we'll be. But I don't know.

Frankly, honestly, to be totally honest, there's probably 15 guys that I would consider more or less interchangeable in a position like that with Friedman. Maybe 100 guys, but certainly probably 15. I think in a position like Tampa Bay's, Friedman's skills stand out more, and I'm not sure there are 15 guys. There might only be three that I would put on his level in that position. But with the Dodgers, you could pick a name out of a hat. There's so many smart guys who could handle that job, I think. Yeah, and it's possible. I mean, I saw certain people say that Friedman maybe has small market skills

and that they aren't suited to a big market or they won't benefit him as much as they did. I mean, it's possible. I would think that many of the same skills apply in both markets, would work well for any team. There are maybe certain skills that are more valuable to the Dodgers than to the Rays and vice versa. I mean, maybe if you're the Dodgers,

maybe one of the most valuable skills for a GM is to be a good welcoming committee, to be really good in a meeting with a free agent when he tours the league and everyone makes their pitch. And also offer as much money as any other team. But if you can talk him into liking your vision for the team, then that's a big asset. And that's a bigger asset in Los Angeles than it was in Tampa Bay where you weren't even going to go after any of the top free agents. So we don't really know whether he has that skill. So that's something we'll find out. But all the other stuff, I would imagine he's just as capable of evaluating expensive talent as inexpensive talent, I would think. So I would imagine that much of the skill will carry over. But you're right. I mean, whether they had made this move or not, and really, even if they hadn't expressed interest in making their move, I think I think you're right that it it only improves the outlook that they were interested in becoming the type of team that would employ Andrew Friedman.

But even if they hadn't, they entered this year as the top projected team. They were one of the best teams in baseball. There's no reason to think that they wouldn't have continued to be they've got the giant tv deal they've got the huge payroll so really if you had to pick a team before this move we did yes we did and you and i did right based on nothing but there's on the based on nothing but their payroll we picked this team. Yes, and that was pre-Friedman. So post-Friedman, the outlook is even brighter, I suppose, but

probably not by quite as much as one would think. Even just the fact that Friedman is not probably as far above average or above the median GM as he was when he was hired in Tampa Bay. A lot of the things that he implemented in Tampa Bay,

a lot of the ideas he had have been copied, have spread everywhere. Maybe he still has a bunch of tricks up his sleeve that he's been saving or that he will continue to come up with, but maybe not. Maybe his best ideas, maybe he didn't save them. Why would he save them? He probably put them into practice right away and they get copied quickly. And so maybe the difference between Friedman and anyone else the Dodgers could have picked off the top of the pile of best GM candidates would have been close to as good. But it's the richest team and if not the smartest person,

then one of the smartest so it's good news for Dodgers fans and bad news for everyone else I guess. Bad news also I would say for the offseason hot take machine I would think that if Ned were running the show you could have imagined a whole offseason of

Yasiel Puig trade talks and now it just seems like that'll get shut right down well that's not the worst thing in the world maybe maybe with a new manager and a new gm we will not have those comms anymore and when the royals wear their t-shirts no one will even think to bring up for you anymore we should by the way there's been a lot of talk about Paul DePodesta. And in fact, there were a lot of, it seemed like every piece about this and every response to this was about the idea that finally we'll see the, like they said with the Mets, except the Mets never had money,

but the money ball with money idea, right? And of course the Dodgers had Paul DePodesta. Paul DePodesta did, I think think a lot of really good moves. He seemed to be putting together a good team. The team won after he left. I think that's right. I think that they won after he left. Maybe they won right at the end.

I can't remember. I can never remember when the Dodgers won or lost. I know they won after Dan Evans left, right? Mm-hmm. Yeah, a lot of the players that he brought there were important. Anyway, yeah. As I recall, Dan Evans left a great team to his follower. And then, as I recall, Deepa Desta left a pretty good team to his follower.

Anyway, I could have just looked this up. The point is they did this. It didn't really work. It didn't create a massive dynasty in LA or anything like that. And Di Podesta essentially got run out of town in a lot of ways. The aggressively non-conventional wisdom-y trade that he made at the deadline to get Hisak Choi and Brad Penny for Paula Duca was ripped, still is ripped by many people. And the media hated him and really never gave him a break and eventually fired. So there was a lot of talk today about, well, there was some talk that ignored the fact that this had already been tried,

but there was some talk that made a big deal about the fact that this had already been tried. I think probably the answer is somewhere in the middle. I don't think that the media issues that plagued DePodesta will be an issue at all, actually. I think that it will be a complete non-issue. L.A. is still obviously a big market and the media matters, but a lot of the people who were there 10 years ago are gone. Some of the people who were very vocal against DePodesta just aren't really that big a deal anymore in the culture. And more than anything though, I think much, much more than anything is just that the baseline

for kind of stat-head acceptance is so, so, so much higher. I mean, it's like infinitely higher. I mean, if you think back to 2004, I mean, OPS was a joke. And to be anything statty made you super weird. And now it's just not like that at all. And there are a couple people who are knee-jerky about this stuff out there in the world, but most aren't and i mean i know like a lot of the people a lot of the guys who cover the dodgers are good writers

fair writers um and uh i just don't really see it being an issue so something else yep uh 2003 was dan evans last year as gm of the dodgers and then 2004 was deep Podesta's first, and they made the playoffs that year, 2004. 2005, they did not make the playoffs. 2006 was Coletti's first year, and they made the playoffs that year also. So the year after Di Podesta, they made the playoffs. Yeah, so that was his team. He left a good team.

Yeah, they both did. And he trained pretty good, if you ask me. Okay, so that's Friedman. We've got more baseball tomorrow, today, if you're listening on Wednesday. I don't know how much more there is to say about the Royals. They won their game in sort of a regular season Royals way, or they didn't score eight runs like they have a few times this postseason after not having done so for over a month at the end of the regular season.

So they didn't score a whole lot, but they played excellent defense again and they scraped out a one run win. I mean, they're there. What, I mean, I wonder what their, their run differential for

this postseason is. Seven. Yeah, that's their win differential. That would be awesome if it were seven. Well, what they've won, they won one game by two and then they won one game by like five, right? Didn't they win eight to three in game three? Yes. So, and then all the others were one run. So, uh, so that would be four or five to 12. Yeah, I mean, the margins of victory would not suggest as commanding a performance or as dominant a performance as they have had 7-0, but it's been fun to watch. I don't know what to say about it. Did we learn anything from it? It was just, I mean, Ned Yost managed well.

No one had complaints about what ned yost did he took jeremy guthrie out and he put in jason frazier and then the big guys and it worked the defense and the bullpen and i don't know it's been a successful blueprint so far so oh yeah that was that was as boring as a 2-1 game could be. Yeah, it wasn't great. It felt like the Royals were ahead the whole way, even though they weren't. And there wasn't a lot of threats. No. Anything about the Giants game? Geez, I was way off, because they won the X-training game by three.

I forgot about that. I was counting that as a one. And then they've won two games by two. So, in fact, I think it's 16. I think their run differential is 16, which is actually not that bad. Well, I guess it's not that bad for seven games. It's great for seven games, but if you're 7-0, it's not that much. No, nothing about the Giants game. Go back to the Royals game, though.

nothing about the Giants game. Go back to the Royals game though. There is a meme being established about how none of this would have occurred if not for fill in the blank in the Oakland game. One hit here,

Bob Melvin's decision there, and that's all very true. I have no objection to it as a curiosity. However, does that, I mean, let me back up. When the Orioles go to the World Series, and maybe when they win the World Series, there will be many narratives about how inevitable it was or about how good the Royals were and how we should have, you know, how Dayton Moore is genius. Yes, that seems to be the fear, at least that I was seeing during the game,

is that as fun as this has been, we will all pay for it because somehow the Royals' victory will set back the state of understanding of baseball by years. Right, and so that would be one extreme. But on the other extreme is, and I'm reading too much. understanding of baseball by years. Right. And so that would be one extreme. But on the other extreme is, and I'm reading too much. I don't think the people who are tweeting this necessarily mean it this way, but is the idea that they didn't, that because this, they so nearly missed this because they barely, barely,

barely deserve to beat the A's. And if they hadn't beat the A's, then their whole season would have been looked at as a, you know, kind of qualified success at best that they don't really deserve to be looked at as a model of anything. And I don't know if that's true or not. However, they did win the next six. And Russell Carlton wrote a thing about on playoff Myths that ran Tuesday at Baseball Perspectives. And one of the myths is X team doesn't have what it takes to win in the postseason.

And as he kind of lays out, logically, if the Nationals lose a series, the first series, well, they're 0-1. And so we might say, oh, well, they don't have what it takes to win in the postseason, but we don't know what they would have done in the next one or the next one, you know, the next series. Like, maybe they would have beat the Cardinals, maybe they would have beat whoever is in the World Series, but we never get to see that play out. We only get the one coin flip for them, and sort of in the same way yes you could say that the royals wouldn't have gotten to play these next six games uh if they had lost to the a's but doesn't it isn't it great

that they did didn't we learn about them because we got to see these six isn't it better that we got to see these six and draw some lessons from these royals can Sure. Is there anything to draw from this? I mean, come on. I don't know what to say. Yeah, I don't know. Ask me at the end of the postseason, but even then, I will probably shrug. This feels like the first game that the Royals won that was distinctly Royals.

You know, every other game, every other game it feels like they've won because, well, actually, I was, maybe I have to take it back. Jeremy Guthrie sucks. And relying on Jeremy Guthrie to pitch successfully is not the Royals' game plan this year. Jeremy Guthrie pitched poorly for them, but it was the closest to it.

They didn't win on a home run, basically. They won because they got to the seventh inning with a lousy offense and a narrow lead and then Herrera Davis Holland and Dyson not that he played a pivotal role today but yes well he did he did play a pivotal role because there's no way Aoki catches that ball in the eighth inning that Kane caught oh the the foul ball in the corner. Exactly. Every time Kane catches a ball, I add a half a run to Dyson's UZR. Yeah, that's possibly fair. I wrote about it today, Tuesday at Grantland, if anyone wants to go look at that. I looked at that combination of Gordon and Dyson

and Kane, and obviously small samples. Even if you combine 2013 and 2014, it's, I don't know what it was, something like 500 innings combined between those two seasons with those guys all playing simultaneously in the same outfield. But the numbers in that small sample are quite impressive, both compared to other Royals outfield alignments and compared to every other team's outfield in those 500 ish innings the royals have had the best babbitt allowed or the lowest babbitt allowed on fly balls of any team in baseball and the second lowest slugging percentage allowed on fly balls of any team in baseball while playing in the park with the biggest outfield

half the time which is really impressive so my headline for the game one recap the best defensive outfield in history do you have a position on that i specifically specifically the gordon dyson Jordan, Dyson, Kane alignment? Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. I am on board with it being the best in baseball over the last couple of years, but whether it's been the best ever, whether you could find a combination of 500 innings at some point over the last many decades of three outfielders who are just as good, probably at some point.

But it is fun to watch. Somebody suggested Cromartie, Dawson, Valentine of the late 70s expos, and that's the best. That's the most compelling one that's been offered to me. None of the other ones I've seen offered have been all that compelling, which isn't to say that there isn't one. But the thing that just gets me about this outfield is that you can make the case that Kane might be the best regular center fielder in baseball and he gets pushed aside yeah like that's incredible I don't think he's probably the best

but he's top three or four and he has to leave his position to go play right field, which is like where Adam Dunn has played sometimes in his career, in order to make way for a better defender. That's just right there, an incredible thing. And how many teams do you think would do that with the same personnel? Because I tweeted something during the game about how maybe Ned Yost doesn't get enough credit for deploying those assets like that because really it's not like Aoki is a bad player

he gets pinch run for and he gets subbed for on defense and he's what an above average runner probably and an average defender I mean he's good at those things when I did my best defensive outfield in history thing,

I looked at some of the outfields that statistically could claim to have also been the best defensive outfield in history. And one of the ones that could be, like one of like 10 that has any credible shot is last year's Brewers, which had Aoki at right field. Yeah. That's how good Aoki is. Yes, he's good.

He's good. And Kane is great in center. And yeah, and you have Dyson, this light hitting bench guy who gets brought in to every game in the late innings when the Royals are tighter ahead. And I wonder how many teams would do that. How many teams with Dyson would use him so regularly to sub for players who are good at the things that Dyson is good at, just not quite as good?

I would guess not too many, because a lot of managers would think, well, we've got a really good guy who does that. I don't want to mess with the starter's head by telling him he's not as good as this bench that. I don't want to mess with the starter's head by telling him he's not as good as this bench guy. I don't want to make all these moves I don't have to make when we've got perfectly good options out there. So I don't know how many teams would make those moves.

Yeah, and to move Kane, not putting Dyson in right even does it to two of your veterans. Although, I don't know. I wondered about that. Dyson seems to have a good arm. He threw out Colin Cowgill in the ALCS with a great throw. But maybe he doesn't have the strength, the arm strength for right field. I don't know. I'm not sure.

I'm not sure. I don't know the answer to that. Maybe that's why. Something to put in the positive side of the ledger for Yost is as rigid as he is with his bullpen rules, he is not rigid at all with his pinch running and defensive substituting rules. Although he doesn't pinch hit, but maybe that's because of the players he has partly too. I'm sure Ned Yost is walking his dog right now listening to this and finally feels validated with his 7-0

record and two bloggers. I think he decided to stay at Dave's tonight. He's not walking his dog. Okay, so that is it for today. The Royals have a chance today, Wednesday, to make some How Sweep It Is headlines for

tomorrow. I already saw a tweet. You did? It was a, yeah. A non-ironic one? No, it was a non-ironic one, although it was not How Sweep It Is. It was Sweep Dreams, but not How Sweep It Is. But they'll be there.

Yeah. Okay. And there's also a game on the NL side, so enjoy baseball. We will be back to talk about it tomorrow. Please keep sending us emails at podcast at baseballprospectus.com, and please keep supporting our sponsor by going to baseballreference.com, subscribing to the Play Index using the coupon code BP, and getting the discounted price of $30 on a one-year subscription.