Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 922: What’s a Wild Card Worth?

Episode Date: July 11, 2016

Ben and Sam banter about Sam’s move, the Waxahachie Swap, and Ryan Webb and Matt Albers, then discuss how much several contenders should be willing to trade to improve their playoff odds.

🎵 Someone keeps on leaving the door Good morning and welcome to episode, say the number Ben 922 Of Effectively Wild, a daily podcast from Baseball Prospectus Brought to you by The Play Index, BaseballReference.com And our Patreon supporters I'm Sam Miller along with Ben Lindberg of FiveThirtyEight Hi Ben

Hi You hear that? I sure do. It sounds like a dog. That is, wow, that is Long Beach wildlife. Oh, okay. Yeah, we're going to be picking up some sounds that might be familiar to the very old school listeners because after something like 700 episodes, I'm going to be back here. All right. So there's going to be back here. All right.

So there's going to be a dog all the time? I don't think so. Right now, I don't have, well, I was going to say I don't have Wi-Fi. I don't have electricity in the house. And so I'm at a neighbor's. And so that dog is their dog. But there might be crickets. There might be.

Okay. I saw a cricket today. Did you kill it? No. It wasn kill it? No. It wasn't near my house. It was about a half a mile away from my house, and I thought, that is where you should be. I feel like in the old days, you still would have just instinctively gone after it. No, I don't have any problem with crickets.

Only crickets that come to my house. I had a long drive this morning, and I listened to all the Rani and Joe episodes. Oh, cool. They were great. Yeah. It was really fun. That took up three hours of my drive. Yeah. You should go away more often. I'm surprised because I remember previous trips. I don't know if you caught up on episodes you missed. Yeah, I normally don't. caught up on episodes you missed yeah i normally don't well yeah they were fun yeah all right uh let's see one of the things that was mentioned that we never talked about was the woxahatchee is that how you pronounce it yeah that sounds close enough the woxahatchee swap yeah so this is of course as probably people know when in order to get the most out of your pitcher's platoon advantages, a manager will take a pitcher out, replace him with a pitcher of the opposite hand, but instead of taking him out of the game, he'll send him to a position normally right or left field. And then once the new reliever has gotten his assigned man out, the pitcher who was center right or left field comes back into the game.

And this is, of course, Rob Nyer is obsessed with this play and tracks them, I think, throughout history. And the only reason I bring this up is that when we were talking about Shohei Otani, I mentioned that if he was going to play DH, if he was going to basically be a two-way beast, he would have to go to the AL because there's no real role for him in the NL. I would think that no team is likely to let him play the outfield regularly or even first base regularly. So if he's going to bat on his days off, unless he's just a generic pinch hitter,

he has to go to the AL where there is a spot just for him. And so then the Waxahachie swap, though, is the opposite. We had talked about having a two-way beast, sort of a guy on the stompers, who would be able to do this, who would be able to basically pitch and then leave. In fact, I think toward the end of the season in an important game, we wanted to have Santos do that. And the problem was that there is a DH for the Stompers, and you can't do the Waxahachie swap in a DH league unless it's very late. You can't really do it because once the pitcher is removed from the game,

once the pitcher enters the game, I forget which rule it is, but once you do it, you lose the DH. There's no longer a DH. And it becomes, you can't make the math work. We did a bunch of simulations basically and figured out that we were going to be losing more by having lost our DH and having to pinch hit throughout the game and so on, and also losing whatever position, because you're putting him at an offense first position as well, so you're losing your starting, say, left fielder or first baseman, and you're not going to have the DH spot, and so it didn't make sense. And so there's often a debate about whether the DH is good or bad for strategy, DH, or sort of baseball purists who don't

like the DH will say that the NL is so much better for strategy because it becomes a chess match. And then the sensible response is actually no. Pitchers spot in the lineup is just so pathetically obvious that you just, you know, it becomes its own sort of dogma and there aren't really that many hard decisions to make when it comes to pitchers batting or having the chance to bat. But in these two cases, we have found places where the strategy, the opportunity for strategy is wildly different depending on whether you have the DH. And I think that the only place that we should really be talking about whether there is enough strategy is using pitchers and hitting roles. I think that is the one good that we should see in the sport.

Yeah, and Otani would be great at that because as our guest on Friday, Jason Koskery, told us he was a really good outfielder before they stopped letting him play outfield for workload-related reasons, not defense-related reasons. So he could very easily go back and forth. Yeah, he had like, I was looking at his fielding stats, and he had like seven assists in 25 games or something. I think it was seven in 50, but all the same, that's a good pro rated. Yeah, he can do it all. That's a good prorated. Yeah, it can do it all. And by the way, it's called the Waxahachie swap after Paul Richards, the former manager who was from Waxahachie, Texas and was nicknamed the Wizard of Waxahachie.

And I think someone in a comment section on a Rob Nyer article suggested that that be the name of this tactic because he was credited with inventing it. I don't think he actually invented it. And you couldn't really say he popularized it because it didn't get popular, but he used it more than anyone else. So that's the origin story. Oh, so Nyer actually named it. Yeah. Well, someone in a comment section named it that and he adopted it. Interesting. Did you know that there is a Waxahachie that is spelled the way that Niner spells it as a southern suburb of Dallas? There's also a Waxahachie Creek in Alabama that is spelled completely differently.

I did not know about that creek in Alabama. All right. Any banter? Well, as I tweeted over the weekend, Ryan Webb and Matt Albers are now members of the same organization. I know. And then they sent him straight. I really wanted to know. I wanted to know i wanted to

do fan fiction of them talking about this just like a waiting for godot in the in the clubhouse of these two guys talking about waiting you know you know basically waiting for their first save and then they then they designated him right away i bet they didn't even cross pat do you think that webb went to the clubhouse or do you think they flew him straight to Durham? Charlotte, I think. Charlotte, yeah. Yeah, the White Sox signed him, so he went to AAA. The Rays.

Was he in Durham already? I guess maybe he was because he had been optioned, so I guess so. So he probably didn't go by way of Chicago. So they probably didn't cross paths, although they certainly might at some point, although it's possible that if Webb does get a shot, it might be at the expense of Albers. Oh, that's right. Only one can.

Right. Still not clear which equals winning, though. No. It's still not clear whether getting the save is the curse or the reward. Yeah. I kind of like it that way so yeah it's interesting if they do occupy the same bullpen at some point then of course their odds are are even worse than before than when they were in two different bullpens and had

more double the the potential save opportunities so if they end up in the same bullpen that would be the ultimate punishmentishment really dude you remember At the beginning of the year when we were so excited About web being in the Rays bullpen because They were not gonna have a closer It was gonna be just wild Just pure wildness down there everybody's Getting a save you know like

Chris Archer's getting a save they're all getting Saves yeah and it's just Nobody one guy one guy Got all the saves I think Ryan Garten got A one of those like weird like five inning Ones but and it's just nobody one guy one guy got all the saves i think ryan garden got a one of those like weird like five inning ones but otherwise it's just been one guy like they just immediately went to the most traditional closer usage yeah those unconventional rays went right to alex call me yeah all right anything else nope So Travis Sawchuk, he emailed me because he was working on a piece about the Pirates of the Trade deadline and specifically about what you do when

you're going for the wild card, whether that's a situation to make a big trade or not. And so I send them back a few paragraphs, but I wanted to talk to you about this because when the second wild card came into being, we talked a little bit about how it was sort of unclear about how the sport was going that said something like the next big thing in sabermetrics is going to be hiring philosophers, which was a better tweet than it sounds when I say it out loud just in case you're judging me right now. Okay. And that was a joke. I was just joking. But then I started thinking about it and someone asked me like, what do you mean? And I didn't want to be like, I don't know. I was just joking. So I gave him a serious response. And my response was that

I think that it actually is true that you have to figure out ways of defining success. You have to figure out how you're going to define success for your organization, for each individual player, and for the league as a whole. And for organizations, I feel like there's something of a reductive way of defining success as being only you win the World Series. But even beyond that, you have to figure out what is successful. And is winning 81 games every year and having good pennant races successful even if you don't win the World Series? Is that not successful? And does it therefore make the case that you should, you know, try to win three out of every five years or two out of every five years,

but then go so far down in the gutter in those other three years that you put yourself in a position in the World Series? It's very difficult to think about, like, what is a successful season? What is a successful era? What is success for a franchise? I still don't know. I think this is year five of the two wildcard setup, and I still don't really know if winning the wildcard and losing

that game counts as successful. And you really have to know that before you decide whether to trade the number 30 overall prospect in baseball for a pretty good reliever so that you can get that second wildcard spot or the first wildcard spot even and play one game. And so I wanted to talk to you – a couple it or were like sort of out of the race, but just in enough that it made it hard to say. And I want to talk about different teams. I want to talk about the teams that, as we head into the trade deadline, that are basically out of their division race and are in the wildcard race.

And what you think the proper kind of orientation toward that opportunity should be for them as they go through the trade deadline. Sound okay? Sure. All right. So there's basically three tiers you can be at with a wildcard. And so I'll just go down from the top.

The best tier, still not the best tier that any team could be in, but vis-a-vis the wildcard, the Dodgers. The Dodgers are basically not a lock, but they're in a great position to win a wildcard spot. Two and a half games up on the Mets and the Marlins, and an extra game up on the Cardinals, and an extra game and a half up on the Pirates. So they're in a very good position for making the wildcard, but they are six, about to be six and a half games out of the division. They are a long shot to win the division, not impossible. Six and a half games is a lot in half a season, in less than half a season, especially against a

good team. But, you know, that gap has been closed. And so they're in a position where they could plausibly try to improve to win the division, or they could plausibly try to improve because they figure they're going to be a playoff team, or they could plausibly say, eh, it's a wild card. Let's just, you know, see what happens. So how do you feel like the Dodgers should view their season right now as far as basically trading from their future in order to make themselves better for this year? from their future in order to make themselves better for this year. Well, the fact that they are the Dodgers sort of makes you think that they would place a greater emphasis on increasing their playoff odds, even if it's largely wildcard odds. Just because they are outspending every other team in baseball, it's more embarrassing for

the Dodgers to miss the playoffs than it is for anyone else. And let me let me let me just pause pause right there because it's not a perfect match because they're in very different kind of trajectories. But last year, the Yankees made the playoffs. The Yankees are a $220 million budget team. They're the class of the sport for the last century or more. Well, not actually the last century, almost a century. And they made the playoffs.

They made the playoffs. They made the wildcard game. Do you think that there are Yankees fans who are like, yeah, this has been a pretty good four years? No, no. But, yeah, I mean, they exited so quickly. It was, you know, one game and they were done and they didn't put up much of a fight in that game. So I still think it changes how it's perceived. I think the fact that they scraped in. I mean, last season was looked at as sort of a success in a sense.

In a larger sense, it's a failure that the Yankees are barely scraping into a wildcard spot when they're spending as much as they do and they have all the advantages that they have. But in the short term, it was sort of seen as exceeding expectations. No one thought they were going to make the playoffs. And so they technically did kind of sort of for, you know, three hours or so. And so I think that did lead to a more positive interpretation, less pressure on the front office, whatever, however you want to define it. Best guess, Ben, without having any knowledge whatsoever, best guess, how many extra season tickets did they sell this year? How many extra season ticket packages did they sell this year? Because they went to the wildcard last year.

Greater or less than 1,000. If they had missed the wildcard by a game. So everything the same, but they missed the wildcard by one game. Yeah, it's got to be less than 1,000. Okay. How many season tickets are there? I don't know. It depends, but if I had to guess, I'd guess the Yankees have a season ticket base of 18,000.

Uh-huh. Yeah, I would guess that so many of those are just corporate clients who are just kind of locked in because they have to have somewhere to take people. So I would guess that a lot of them would get renewed anyway, but I would say less than a thousand, I think. All right. So that was, but like I said, they're in a very different position than the Dodgers. The Dodgers are supposed to be, well, I guess the way that- I wonder if it changes their off season though, because they had a very un-Yankees like off season where they didn't sign a single free agent. I wonder whether they have the sort of self-confidence or breathing room to do that if they don't make that wildcard game. I don't know.

I don't know that that was like such a great strategy anyway, so I don't know if it matters, but I wonder whether that would have changed their offseason. So the Dodgers, though, are most likely going to make it. They probably don't have To do anything to make it they they probably Don't have to add anything in order to To win a wild card spot So really The question is whether they should be investing In trying to catch the Giants Yeah well I think they've

Operated in such a way that They're not going to trade Their very top couple people To do that but would they Do it with someone in the next tier down? Possibly, yeah. I think just because they're the Dodgers, I don't know. I mean, their front office is very analytical,

and they're probably going to put less stock in something like that than maybe some other front offices would. But at the same time, it would be really uncomfortable for everyone involved there if the team that's spending way more than everyone else misses the playoffs. Yeah, but they're not going to miss the playoffs. That's the point. The question is they're likely to win a wild card spot, and then at that point they're roughly 50-50 to then be out after a game.

So the question is, is it embarrassing to only play one game? Yeah, right. I mean, their playoff odds right now are 80%. Right. And that's including wild cards. So it's not like a total walk. So you'd think they might want to do something just to get that four and five shot up to something closer to five and five. But yeah, their division odds are something like 30%, which was what they were roughly when we talked about it while you were away. And I

talked about it with Joe and Rani. So if you believe that, then that seems worth trying to upgrade. But I don't know exactly what the upgrade is. Maybe it's Rich Hill or something. Maybe you add the best player available on the market. It's not that great a market. But yeah, I think a 30% shot is worth doing something. And if you're the Dodgers and you can take on lots of salary, as perhaps they still can, then you could do that. But I think based on the way they've operated, I mean, they've resisted the urge to trade their young, talented players before. So I doubt they would do it now. Do you think that it changes anything to know that they have Clayton Kershaw for that one game? Yeah, sure. Assuming Clayton Kershaw is healthy and

back and pitching at full strength, which is not a certainty, then yeah, you know that they will be favored in that game against anyone. Favored enough that you don't have to expend too much extra energy to chase down a division? Is it easier to just say, we'll go at it with Kershaw in that game rather than, you know, like let's say there are three or four back of the Giants at the deadline. Does it ease the pressure to go after the Giants? Or is it still that you just don't want to go into one game, no matter who's pitching, you don't want to have the season riding on one game. And so you, cause, cause there is a point if they're one game behind the Giants, they're more likely to add, right? Yeah. And if they're 10 years behind the Giants, they're less likely to add. So how much does it move that,

that inflection point to know that you have Kershaw? Does it go from three games to four where you sort of stop thinking about chasing the Giants or three games to six or what? I don't know if there is a point where you should really because having Kershaw is nice, but I mean, you're probably going to be facing some other team's really good pitcher. And so you'll be favored by a little bit, but not so much that it will really change the calculus that much, I don't think. So I'm not really sure. I mean, there might be a point at which you could sort of sell that, or you could tell yourself that, or maybe fans would believe that. But statistically speaking, I'm not really sure that it affects your chances enough that you should decide based on a game or two game difference in the division standings.

Before I go on to the next team, you said that it's not a very inspiring trade market. And I had a thought while you were talking to Joe and Rennie that maybe it is. Okay. Counter. So the reason that it's a bad trade market is that there are no good free agents coming up. And normally we think of the guys who are available for trade as being the guys who have three months left on their contract and their teams have really no better way of using

those players than to cash them out and get something before they leave as free agents. However, the free agent market is so bad this winter that you have to figure there are like 24 to 26 teams that are going to go into this winter trying to improve, trying to get into a competitive position. And they're not dumb. They know that in November, when they're trying to do this, there's not going to be anybody available. And so I wonder whether there's this whole glut of players who become available as, in essence, the free agent market in July, where you're getting guys who have two, you start looking at Chris Archer or you start looking at any number of guys who might plausibly be available who have three or four or five years left on their deal and can be your big free agent signing of the winter. And you just do it in July. And by doing it in July, you get the extra year, the extra postseason out of them.

And so it really sort of strikes me that you might be right, that this might be the deadest July trade deadline we ever see. But I'm kind of expecting that in the next three weeks, a whole bunch of names that nobody's thinking about. Like, I bet you, I would put, well, I would, if the Marlins were bad, but the Marlins are good, so it makes it a problem. I was going to say, if the Marlins were bad, I would say 50-50 chance that Trout or Fernandez gets traded this month. But, of course, I can't say that now, and nobody can prove me wrong because I'm taking Jose Fernandez out of it. Like is it now the time to trade for Trout? Like if you're the Cubs, don't you get Trout now?

Well, sure, if you can. Well, it's not like the Angels are going to get any better in the next three months. No. And they're – I mean, yeah, you're right, if you can. Well, it's not like the Angels are going to get any better in the next three months. No. And they're, you know, I mean, yeah, you're right, if they can. There's no indication that the Angels would ever trade Mike Trout. But, you know, if they have sense, they're thinking about this the same way that we are, the same way that everybody else is. And so, yeah, like if I were the Cubs, I would put together a package with Jason Hayward

for Mike Trout right now and then fill him in with McKinney and somebody else and see if you can make it. I mean somebody else. A lot else. Schwarber, Hayward, McKinney for Trout right now. Yeah, I think the problem is that we entered this season with a handful of teams that were just totally, completely out of it. And one of the reasons that they were totally, completely out of it was that they had already done lots of selling. So you had the Braves trade lots of guys, and you had the Phillies trade guys, and you had the Reds trade guys, and the Padres trade guys. And so they got at least some of the selling over with.

And so there are some teams that you look at their rostersters and there's just not a whole lot that anyone would want, even if it was available. But, you know, there will be good players traded, so it's not completely empty. Sonny Gray getting traded? Well, I don't know what you would really give up for Sonny Gray right now. Well, you remember the piece I wrote about guys getting traded after one good start pitchers getting traded after one yes right so one good start yeah okay it was uh wasn't that great a start yeah uh okay so then next here is the uh mets marlins cardinals and

then we already talked about the pirates who have played themselves back into this, but I guess also the Pirates, who are basically out of the division, basically, kind of, and not locked for the wildcard. They're in a competitive race for the wildcard. And some of them are more in the division than others. The Mets are six games back of a very good team. The Marlins are six games back of a very good team. The Marlins are six games back of a very good team, but also they are a worse team probably. Cardinals and the Pirates are like nine or ten back, something like that. And they're all basically— Only seven, seven and a half right now actually.

I do a Cubs adjustment. You just add a couple games? Based on the run differential and Joe Maddon and Travis Wood. Big fan of Travis Wood. But they're also in a very competitive... They're all two and a half, three, whatever games behind the Dodgers. So they're in a more competitive... So are they trading big prospects?

Because not only do they... Not only is the prize one game with a chance of more, but the prize is like a one in four-ish chance to begin with. So are they trading? Well, all the teams you just mentioned aren't really at the end of a window or something. There isn't really a last gasp team in that bunch. I mean, the Pirates should be good for a while. The Cardinals are always good. The Mets and the Marlins, you know, they're not drawing to a close or anything. It's not like a Tigers last run kind of thing before things go bad.

The Marlins kind of are always drawing to a close. I mean, it's not like the Marlins' best days are behind them or anything, but they're over their heads, right, right now? Yeah, I would think a little bit, yeah. Like they will have a worse record next year than they have this year. I don't know. I don't feel confident saying that. Okay.

But, yeah, I mean, they're all – there isn't really a – I wouldn't say there's really a fluke team in the bunch. I mean, they're all fairly good teams. Maybe the Marlins are the worst of them, but none of those teams is like, you know, total fluke where you look at the numbers and you say there's no way that they should be where they are and there's no way that they will be there going forward.

I mean, the Marlins have been outscored. So they are the closest to that, I guess. But the other teams, people expected them to be good and they've been, you know, pretty good. And so other teams, people expected them to be good and they've been pretty good. And so none of them is a team where you say it's not even worth investing because they're going to fall apart no matter what you do. So those teams, I don't know exactly how to define how in they should be. If they had a top 10 prospect, should they had a top 10 prospect should they trade the top 10 prospect for a rental or something i don't know how to exactly say how in they should be or how out they should be but

they all i think have legitimate enough shots that you wouldn't see them do something and then just say oh they're you know they're throwing good money after bad or whatever it's a lost cause and they're just you know sinking resources into this for no reason. I'll be honest, Ben. At this point, I don't even know who's supposed to be trading. Like the Cubs? Should the Cubs be trading? Trading for people?

Yeah. Like should they be trading for people? Like they've got it locked up. Like how much is Andrew Miller really going to add to their postseason chances once they get there? Like once they make it, which they're like 100% to make it, how much do their World Series chances go up? From like 22 to 22.2?

Well, I guess... Like I know who should be trading. If you are tied with a team in your division, you should be trading. Like I'm 100% certain that you should then be adding players. Everybody else, I'm kind of like that gets to where you need a philosopher. Yeah. Well, it depends. I mean, the Cubs have obviously come back to earth a little bit and they're under 500 since the beginning of June, I think. So, you know, the run differential is still really impressive, but it's gotten to the point where we're, you know, looking at the standings and unless you add in the Cubs adjustment that you just added in, there is a, you know, kind of a race there a little bit.

If it comes down to, you know, upgrading the bullpen or something, then that just comes down to your philosophy, I guess, about what makes a good playoff team, if anything. And we've gone back and forth about that and questioned that since the very beginning of this podcast. And we still don't know exactly what to think. But it certainly is true that elite relievers pitch a higher percentage of your innings in the postseason. that elite relievers pitch a higher percentage of your innings in the postseason. And so in theory, it would be especially useful to get a guy like Andrew Miller when your bullpen is not your greatest strength. And so I don't know what the Cubs think about that, but there's at least a line of thought that getting someone like Miller matters more than, you know, getting someone else who is equally valuable in the regular season. Yeah, Joe made such a good case for Andrew Miller on the Cubs that I was, I think,

at the time in the process of doing Mike Trout trades in my head. And then I started thinking, like, maybe you don't even get Mike Trout because it costs you the pieces that you need to get Andrew Miller. And that made some sense because maybe that's what the Cubs need right now. Maybe, maybe in fact, uh, Andrew Miller, I know what I just said like 45 seconds ago, but maybe Andrew Miller adds more to this team right now in the cut. Then, you know, the Mike Trout does. And, uh, you know, plus the fact that Mike Trout is going to cost it, a you know a ton more to get right do let's be silent for a second and just listen you hear that i can't hear that no oh they're so

loud the crickets tonight it's weird yeah because you'll hear a hawk four miles off in the distance that i can't even hear yeah and these crickets are blasting right now all. So then the next tier is the teams, I guess, that are in a kind of not a great chance to make the wildcard. But if this were the old way of doing things, we would say that they're definitely in a great chance to make the wildcard. They're the Houston Astros. They're two games behind the first wildcard. They're also two games behind the second wildcard. So pretty good chance to make it, but they second wild card. So pretty good chance to make it, but they have to improve. So are the Astros trading from their future to win this one game playoff appearance? I think so, because the Astros are only five and a half back in the

division. And you and I, man, you and I have very different views about what five and a half games in the division means. I mean, there's half a season left almost. Oh, yes. Yeah. And the Rangers have a 700 run differential. Yeah, right. The Rangers, let's see. Is the Rangers run differential any better than the Astros? Rangers, Pythag is 47 and 42. Astros is 47 and 41. Oh, that's pretty close. Astros is 47 and 41 I mean it's pretty close It's close and the Rangers have a sizable lead

But maybe Pythag isn't even the best thing to look at with the Rangers Because they've scored so many runs Because they've been incredibly clutch I think And so that's been part of their run scoring And that doesn't usually continue in the second half of a season If it happened in the first as Jeff Sullivan showed recently so I think they are close enough I mean they were the division favorites coming

Into the season I think for most people And so I think they're close enough that They would be going for it. Alright so that's Not really answering my question because It turned out that I was a faulty question Alright. Do you have another One in that tier? Yeah well no this is The last tier is Below them long shots to make the wild card

And even longer shots to make the division That would be the Tigers, the Royals, and the White Sox Who are three very different teams Who are also essentially tied with each other Four and a half or five games out in the wild card Six and a half or five games out in the wild card, six and a half or seven games out in the division. So are any of them trading from the future to win this wild card spot? And remember, the Astros are between them and the two wild card spots.

So they would also have to overtake the Astros, which are, you know, who are a very good team with, you know, a decent, with a, you know, a weekend's worth of good baseball lead over them. Yeah, and you could also maybe throw the Mariners into that group. They're five games back in the wild card race. Yeah. So, I guess it might depend on like, if you're the Mariners

and A, you have the longest postseason drought in the major leagues, and B, you don't seem to have a very long future with your current core. As I talked about with Joe, this seems like a team that's more coming to a close than at the start of something. So maybe if you're the Mariners and you're in those circumstances, you go for it to a certain extent. I don't know if you're the White Sox. I mean, the White Sox kind of always go for it or they never go away from it. And the Tigers are kind of in the same sort of Mariners camp where they are just trying to string this thing along for as long as they can.

And each year from now on kind of looks worse and worse. So if you're those teams, then I don't know how to, should you trade your best prospect for a rental? No, I wouldn't do that for the slim chances that they have, but I wouldn't be in a non-buying mindset. I wouldn't go into it saying there is no circumstance under which I would give up a prospect for a player but I wouldn't do it for a short term or only move in which I'm sacrificing something significant like with the Cubs

you might give up a good prospect A because you just have so many and you have no place to play them all but also because you know you're going to be there this could be your best shot ever you have the weight of history behind you. So you might make a sort of short-term oriented move. I wouldn't make the same sort of move if I

were one of these teams, but I also wouldn't go into it as a seller or as a definitely standing pat team. Yeah. I grouped these teams by tiers based on how far out of the wildcard they are. And yet, really, I think that the answer is based much less on how close to the wildcard you are, much more about where you are as a franchise. Whether there is a drought that you're expunging, whether there is some sort of extra benefit to being able to sell yourself to the franchise the next year as a winning team, whether you're a team that I think, like the Dodgers, is based on their investment, has to always kind of be somewhat desperate to make the playoffs because it's such an expectation,

and based on where you are in your kind of expected competitive window. And so it's much less about whether you're two games out, four games out, or two games up, and much more about whether you can sell that. Well, I guess partly whether you can sell that to your fans or to yourself as success, and partly whether you're selling from a future that's already pretty bleak or one that's on the upswing. from a future that's already pretty bleak or one that's on the upswing. It does occur to me, though, that one of the great things I think about this current five-team playoff system is that it creates incentives for a lot more teams to consider themselves not only competitive

but also to see the benefit of getting better. So there's a benefit to winning the division instead of the wild card. Where there wasn't before, there's a benefit to winning the division instead of the wild card where there wasn't before. There's a benefit to having the best record in baseball or in the league, whereas there wasn't really before. And there's a benefit to winning, you know, a wild card spot that didn't previously exist before. On the other hand, there is this weird, I'm completely like, I do not respect this wild card appearance at all. Like, I don't think if you make the wildcard game and lose, you made the playoffs. I just think it's still kind of a pathetic loss of a season,

except in certain circumstances. So if you're a team that is not going to win the division, but is likely to win the wildcard because you have the best record of all the teams that aren't going to win the division, well, six years ago, I would say that team should be adding in July. Like, they should be going crazy. They're going to make the playoffs.

Get good. And now I think, eh, you're just going to make the wildcard game. It's a 50-50 chance you're not even going to win that game. Eh, probably not best to invest that much in this season. And maybe I'm the only one who feels that way. But, like, I'm a big fan of going for it and season the day, but the wild card, man, I just don't feel like there's anything there to hold on to. Yeah. Well, it is a lot easier for us to feel that way. I think

looking at it in a very dispassionate way and an analytical way and looking at the odds and the expected return and all of that. Whereas if you odds and the expected Return and all that whereas If you're in the front office you're The GM you're whatever I mean Just just imagine I mean even if you're Fairly confident that you'll be back The next year it's still a year Away it's a long time to wait and

It's a whole six months of no Baseball and putting the whole roster Together and then having Everything you know, go right, or at least not catastrophically wrong. And just all the waiting and all the abuse that you take from fans in the meantime, and people questioning your decisions and awkward ownership meetings, and just all of the just stuff you sort of have to suffer through to get back to the point where you can prove yourself again, has to be a hard thing to just decide nope

i'm just gonna just gonna wait just gonna give up on this year and uh make the smart move has to be the same for fans of course who you know want to see a winner and maybe don't have the same appreciation for prospects that they've never heard of that someone who's looking at this in a more analytical way would. They just want to see their team win. They want to see their team give them a better shot of playing postseason baseball. And that is the wild card game

if the alternative is nothing. Yeah, maybe it's the exception that proves the rule because of the cesspitous trade, because they blew an 8-3 lead or whatever. But I just remember seeing how little Billy Bean got out of that wildcard appearance in 2014. Like in a way, that was probably his worst season from a fan's perspective in the Bay area. Like he was just savaged for that season. And it would have been better, I think, for his local reputation if they'd won 82 games and missed the playoffs by two games. I just don't think that making one game got him

a single free drink in the Bay Area. And so I guess it's different, but it's different with every team and every situation and every city and every every year But I don't know that you can sell that to your owner To your boss, that it was a success Yeah, I mean you get to hang the playoff bunting If you have a home game Yeah, and Eduardo Nunez gets to say he's an all-star Alright, that's all I got Okay, well I hear the crickets now

So I guess that's our cue to leave You can support the podcast on Patreon Okay, well I hear the crickets now, so I guess that's our cue to leave. You can support the podcast on Patreon by going to patreon.com slash effectivelywild. Today's five listeners who have already pledged their support are Wayne Goldstein, J. Keith Van Straten, Kevin Arrow, Jessica Pritchett, and Lee Corbett. Thank you. You can buy our book, The Only Rule Is It Has To Work, our wild experiment building a new kind of baseball team. Go to theonlyruleisithastowork.com for more information, Bye. and you can rate and review and subscribe to the podcast on iTunes. Get the discounted price of $30 on a one-year subscription to the Play Index

by going to baseballreference.com and using the coupon code BP when you subscribe. We thank you all for keeping us company through the so-called first half of the season and the actual first half of the season. We will keep you company through the All-Star break, so we'll be back with a new show tomorrow. You just gotta care Oh, wildlife