Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 965: NLCS Update

Episode Date: October 18, 2016

Ben and Sam banter about Zach Britton and Shohei Otani, then discuss Dave Roberts, bullpen management, and the NLCS.

We're talking about a six seven left hander who throws ninety eight miles an hour with a wipeout slider. They can go a couple innings if you need to. Never given up an earned run in his postseason career.

A little conveniently wild every once in a while. But he's got a lot of fun. He's got a lot of fun. the first pitch a little conveniently wild every once in a while too which is not comfortable for the hitter. Good morning and welcome to episode 965 of Effectively Wild, the daily podcast from Baseball Perspectives Brought to you by The Play Index, BaseballReference.com And our Patreon supporters, I'm Sam Miller of ESPN, along with Ben Lindberg of The Ringer Hi Ben, how are you? Doing alright

Good, I think this will probably be a fairly quick episode but we wanted to respond to the uh to the where the dodgers and cubs series is before the dodgers and cubs series goes any further i have two quick things i think only two quick things as far as banter goes one one is i just want to just a brief public service service announcement for anybody who is on the Facebook page or really is in life, which is don't steal people's fun facts. If you see a good fun fact on Twitter, if you see somebody who discovered that, you know, who was the first person to tweet, or even the 10th person to tweet,

that Clayton Kershaw's last save came in the Midwest League or whatever, and that Kenley Jansen was his catcher. Well, don't just say that in a tweet. Say where you saw it. Make sure that you give credit to the hardworking fun fact generators out there just trying to put retweets on the table for their families. Yeah, good advice. Secondly, did you see the Zach Britton game worn jersey tweet? Yes. All right. So that's a good tweet. Very good tweet. They're selling Zach Britton's game worn jersey, auctioning it off, I guess his game worn jersey. And Zach Britton points out that he didn't wear it in a game because this was from the wildcard game that he didn't get into very famously. Do you think that one must get into a game for his jersey to be game worn?

I think so. I mean, I assume he was wearing it during the game, and he did warm up during the game, so he threw baseballs while he was wearing this uniform. But he didn't actually get into the game, so I don't know. It's a Zach Britton-worn jersey, but but wasn't technically in a game i think it shouldn't count all right i think that it should count i think it was uh it was a good tweet a worthy tweet and uh i i definitely applaud him for the tweet but i count it he sweated in it uh-huh yeah

probably i wonder whether uh like do you think Buck Showalter resents that tweet? Do you think this will be an issue in 2017? I was going to, I actually was going to ask you basically the same thing. And then I thought, who are we to stir up? Yeah, I mean, who knows? But I did wonder. I mean, that was my first thought. Because the tweet is literally lol dot dot dot. Right.

And it's the, I don't know if the dot dot dot, dot, I don't know if I should be reading into the dot, dot, dot. But to me, dot, dot, dot always has a sort of an air of melancholy around it that it's, you don't, you don't trail off a thought because you're just so happy with it. And so to me, it's like, lol, and then the dot, dot, dot represents Britain then turning and staring off into the distance wondering what could have been. And then he has hashtag false advertising which uh yeah it definitely does bring i mean it certainly shows what his perspective is on the move and it does not downplay attention to the move uh and it is like us turns the move or the non-move into a punchline. He is mocking it. So I don't know, to understand

what the relationship is between Zach Britton and Buck Showalter right now would require a little bit more effort on our parts. For all we know, they've had a good talk and Buck has apologized and said, I'll live with that one for the rest of my life, but there's nothing we can do but move on or something. And I don't know, whatever he said, for all live with that one for the rest of my life. But, you know, there's nothing we can do but move on. Or something. And, I don't know, whatever he said, for all we know, cleared the way. Maybe the whole, I doubt it. I was going to say, maybe the whole clubhouse is laughing about it. I don't think that's true.

Probably too soon. Anyway, I don't know. I'm curious. I'm curious as well. Yeah, me too. All right. And I wrote about Shohei Otani. Finally, we've been talking about him for months.

We did an episode on him in July, but we keep bringing him up because he keeps doing amazing things. So I finally just wrote about it. And the impetus for writing about it was what he is doing in the Japanese playoffs, which are called the Climax Series, which is great. I love that. the Climax Series, which is great. I love that. So basically there was a five-game series between his team, the fighters, and the two-time defending champions of Japanese baseball, the Hawks. And so he started the first game, pitched seven scoreless, gave up one hit, was brilliant. He hit in every game of the series. So it went five and he did the Clayton Kershaw thing He came in in game five for a save it was A you know kind of a routine

Three run lead save but he Still did and he was dominant and he broke his Own record for fastest Fastball again I think for the third Time this year so in relief He threw 165 Kilometers per hour which is 103 So now we know what Shohei Otani

Can do in relief at least that one time he threw a forkball 94 miles an hour and some sliders 89 wait hey wait a forkball 94 yeah did you say yeah i don't even know how fast the forkball is supposed to be really but probably not that fast so that's how hard he throws it, apparently. And so he was great. So he had the dominant start, the dominant relief appearance, and he got on base and scored in every single game in the series. He hit for himself when he was starting, and he DH'd in every other game.

So he was just a one-man team, basically, and he's awesome. And I discovered this Japanese stat site that is basically fan graphs for the Japanese leagues and I didn't know it existed and it has like all the fan graphs stats just sort of ripped off and applied to Japanese baseball so I was able to dig into all of that to explore his dominance this year and so people can go read it if they want all the details but basically he's still doing amazing, awesome things. And if you have no rooting interest in the MLB playoffs, if you don't really care about any of these remaining teams, you should root for Otani's team.

Because while it's unlikely that he will ask to be posted this offseason, there is at least a chance that he will if he wins the MVP award and a championship. And he is very likely to win an MVP award for one thing, because he is the most valuable player, but also because often it goes to a player on a pennant winning team because it's supposed to consider only regular season, but they don't ask for the ballots until on the eve of the Japan series. So they know who won the pennant. So often it goes to a pennant-winning player. So he's very likely to win an MVP, and that'll be announced sometime in late November. But if he wins this series and the MVP, then he'll essentially have accomplished everything that he set out to accomplish in NPB, which could possibly make him want to leave this

winter. It's still unlikely. It's more likely that he'll leave next year after he gets to play for Japan in the WBC. But there's at least an outside shot. So if you don't care about the Dodgers and the Indians and thehaw is the best pitcher in baseball If you though were going to do Like your Q ratings Q rating? Q score? Yep, famousness For the United States For all athletes in the United States Trout I mean what would Trout be like?

30th? Maybe 40th? Yeah I mean even in Among baseball players Among baseball players i'm not among baseball players he'd probably be i don't know like top 10 or something oh i think among i think among baseball players he'd be like among active players i think he'd be like top three or four maybe yeah i mean who else is even close you have bryce harper you have guys like Jeter and Ortiz who are retired now, I'm sure they'd be higher. And A-Rod, yeah. So you'd have Harper and Kershaw, I guess.

Harper, Kershaw. Maybe we're just about to bring that up. And maybe Miguel Cabrera. Yeah. And that's about it. Pujols, perhaps. Oh, yeah, Pujols. Yeah, perhaps.

All right. Okay, so let's say he's like... Yeah, but baseball players in general, I think, are way below other sport players when it comes to that. And Kershaw is about the same. Kershaw is roughly the same. I'm not even sure that Kershaw is more famous than Mike Trout. But they're close. They're both down in the, you know, dozens from the top.

So let's say that Mike Trout... Let's say that there was a... Well, I don't know what Otani's personality is like, but let's say that Mike Trout was like Otani. He was Mike Trout as a hitter and also like Mike Trout as a pitcher. And he was doing this. Or let's say that it's pretty similar, actually. When we talked to Jason on that podcast, he said he's, you know, he at least seems shy. He's not unpleasant or anything, but he's not like the greatest quote.

Okay. So if Mike Trout were also Kershaw and we're doing this right now How famous would he be? Would he be a top five famous athlete In the United States? Yeah, I think he'd be like Ginny Baker Who? From pitch Oh, okay

Yeah, I think he'd be Yes, I do think so Because it's just so extraordinary That even people who don't care at all about baseball Would still care about this unique thing Alright, good That's all I wanted to know Yeah, so that'sani's future, which is something that teams can keep in mind, like apart from his value on the field in every way on the field, he might also be the biggest

star in baseball and the biggest star in sports or one of them if he is actually allowed to try this. So he will have some off thethe-field branding-type value also. All right, so we can talk about playoffs now. All right, so it's been a great series between the Dodgers and the Cubs. Two phenomenal games, and really a run, I would say, of phenomenal games for both teams even leading up to it. These have been exciting playoffs, and these have been two exciting teams. And I don't really have a roadmap or anything like that. But I guess maybe one thing I'll start with is from where you're sitting, is Dave Roberts a better

or worse manager than you thought he was three weeks ago before you'd had a chance to A, really study him and obsess over his moves and B, see how he reacts to postseason moments? I don't know that he's changed my mind all that much. My default assumption was that he was a pretty good manager even before we saw him manage, just because he seems like a smart guy and everyone loves him. And he was hired by the Dodgers. And I figured that the Dodgers, with their brain trust, would not have hired someone who would run counter to their philosophy as they like to control things. So I assumed he would be at least competent. And we found out early on in the season that he was going to manage the way he wanted to manage and manage with the team's best interests in mind

and not really care about the spectators or what is the traditional move to make. So I would say that if anything, he has maybe improved my opinion of him just based on what he did in game five of the NLDS. But I wouldn't say it's been a dramatic change. Do you think that he knew that Kershaw was going to come in in case he needed to bring Jansen out of game five? The story that Tim Brown wrote, wonderful game story, really suggests that like Roberts was sincere when he said he was unavailable at the beginning of the game, that Honeycutt, the pitching coach Rick Honeycutt was like adamant that he wasn't

going into the game, that Kershaw was like asking to be available in like, I forget the details, but like I think in like the eighth and Honeycutt's like, no way, you're not pitching today. And then suddenly, you know, he's pitching today. And I feel like the Jansen move is to some degree very different if you imagine it without Kershaw being there at the end. Because it really is a lot to ask Kenley Jansen to throw 65 pitches or so, which is what he might have done if he'd actually had to go to the end. And it really is the case that they didn't have a good option after him except Kershaw. So if you're thinking, if you're observing Dave Roberts making this move, and he's saying, I'm going to

get five, six, seven, eight outs from Kenley Jansen, maybe nine, but the rest are going to be Kershaw. Well, then that's, that looks awesome, brilliant, gutsy, imaginative, and sensible. If it's that he had no plan for how to get Jansen out of there, it sort of maybe looks like he got bailed out. So I'm curious if you think that he considered Kershaw all along to be the next guy in the game. Well, it must have been on his mind. I think he couldn't have assumed that Jansen would throw that many pitches.

I mean, that was, they really made him work. I mean, on Sunday, he threw 18 pitches to get through two innings, and that was against a really good Cubs team. So if he'd been able to do that in the prior outing, I mean, he could have gotten out of that in, you know, 30 pitches or something, and it would have been fine. He didn't really start to lose it until that last inning when he was way over his career high. And I think, to be fair, also four of them were intentional balls. Yeah, right.

So I think he had a reasonable chance of getting Jansen through it. Reasonable chance of Getting Jansen through it and Even if it didn't work out It was still better to bring him in When he did I think Just to get those innings Get as much as you can out of him and Even if you do have to relieve him with

Some subpar reliever that's Not any worse than having To do that before bringing Jansen in Right so I think it's Fine I think it was a good gamble To just see how far he could go And I mean you could say that Bringing in Kershaw it wasn't

Necessarily a slam dunk smart Move to bring in your Starting pitcher in relief For his first save ever On one day's rest I mean it Sounds great because it's Kershaw but I don't Know like what if he doesn't respond well to that? We don't know. So I think it made sense. And I think he got bailed out there a little bit by Kershaw at the end. But I think even if it had gone south,

it wouldn't necessarily have been worse than the alternative. All right, I'm going to give you a few names here. So and I'm starting at the top and then going down, you'll notice that but this is like, basically, I'm I'm starting at the top and then going down. You'll notice that, but this is like, basically I'm going to start at the top of quality and then go down. And each of these pictures is roughly going to represent like a tier in my mind, if that makes sense. All right. So we're going to have six tiers here. Kenley Jansen at the top and then Cody Allen and then Joe Blanton and then Santiago Casilla and then JP How, and then Joe Blanton, and then Santiago Casilla, and then JP Howell, and then Anthony Swarczak. Do any of those seem out of order? If you want,

I can replace. Maybe you don't think Blanton is that good or Casilla is that bad? No, I think it's okay. Okay. All right. So Kenley Jansen walks into the game. He is Kenley Jansen. That is self-evident. How many pitches until he is Cody Allen? I'd say 20. Okay. How many until he is Joe Blanton? 30.

How many until he is Santiago Casilla? 40. J.P. Howell? I don't know. Is he that much worse than Casilla? All right. Skip him. Skip him.

Okay. Anthony Swarczak? 55. Okay. That's about what I was thinking. All right. Okay. So one way or another, you know that Jansen is going to get into shaky, shaky territory. Yeah. But anyway, you're right that you, if we just want to get as many outs as you can out of him, then it certainly doesn't make sense to hold him where there's a, you know, there's a, there's a barrier to him

getting more outs because the game is over. You as well start him early all right what did you think about the intentional walk strategy sorry just to be clear for anybody who forgets or doesn't know what i'm talking about in game one tie game after a leadoff double and after getting somebody addison russell to pop out i think uh dave roberts intentionally walks jason Jason Hayward with righty Joe Blanton on the mound. And then gets Javi Baez for the second out. And then intentionally walks Chris Coughlin, maybe? Somebody. And then to load the bases for Miguel Montero, who is pinch hitting for Aroldis Chapman.

This has the benefit of getting Aroldis Chapman out of the game. It also maybe has the benefit of setting up a matchis Chapman out of the game. It also, you know, maybe has the benefit of setting up a matchup he likes between Joe Blanton, pretty good reliever, and Miguel Montero, a not very good hitter, and has the, you know, the opposite of a benefit in that it loads the bases in a situation where one run is likely going to win the game. Yeah, I didn't look at any run expectancy tables or anything. But I mean, the default opinion about an intentional walk is, I mean, at least unless it's an extreme situation, it seems like it's counterproductive most of the time. And I kind of like the creativity of

thinking about what it does to the opposing team's pitcher and the matchups and everything. Usually, we just think of it as the immediate matchup and who is facing whom in that moment. But I think probably too risky to make sense. Yeah, I thought it was like too clever by nine tenths. Like as soon as they said at the beginning of the inning, well, Chapman's up sixth. I thought, oh, hey, maybe they could get him out of the game by having him bat. And then I thought, that's a bad idea. He's sixth. If he's batting, then probably the inning

is getting out of hand. And it was kind of getting out of hand, although they'd done it without scoring, without allowing a run. But to me, there were a few problems with it. One is that you're intentionally walking guys like Jason Hayward, who just aren't that good. I'm not even sure, to be honest, I'm not even sure that I would rather face Javier Baez with Blanton than Jason Hayward with Blanton. Hayward's just, Hayward's in a really, really bad place in his career at this point. And Javier Baez is not. I think it's like kind of admirable that he didn't get caught up in Javier Baez mania. I mean, Javier Baez has been awesome and fun to watch this postseason and everything, but he's not a great hitter.

I mean, he's been really good in the playoffs so far. And if you think he is especially locked in now and that's what your scouts are telling you or whatever, then okay. But he didn't end the season especially strong or anything. He didn't get better as the season went on. He was a below average hitter right up until the playoffs started, basically. So as fun as he is to watch and as good as he is at many things and as promising

as he is for the future, you wouldn't want to treat him as if he's suddenly like super heavy biased just because he had a couple of great plays in the postseason. So I respect that, but still probably no, I don't think so. I agree exactly about respecting that, but I don't think that your choice was Javier Baez out of his mind or Jason Hayward. Even if it's regular Javier Baez and Jason Hayward, I still think that you probably want Javier Baez. I mean, he was, you know, Baez has a normal platoon split and did this year. And Hayward has a normal platoon split and did this year. And Hayward has a normal platoon split and did this year. And still, Hayward was quite a bit worse against righties than Baez was. Now, you do set up the double play, and that's not irrelevant.

If you're going to walk one of them, maybe it makes sense to do it where you have a 1 in 10 chance of getting two outs right there. So that makes a little bit of sense. But I don't know. It was really, really, really, really, really a gamble. And to not bring in a lefty at the time, you know, they had, they had a lefty up. They could have brought the lefty in to intentionally walk Chris Coghlan. And then, I guess then Madden might've pinch hit with a righty.

And then you'd have to always bring the lefty in. But you could still replace the lefty. So then, okay. So you intentionally walk Coughlin if you want to. Well, actually, I guess what you'd do is you'd bring in the lefty, who is what, Grant Dayton? You bring in Dayton, and then Wilson Contreras would be batting because they wouldn't pinch hit Coughlin. So then you intentionally, if you're committed to this intentionally walking idea, then you bring in Coughlin who, wait, what did I say? No, yeah, so wait, hang on.

Managing is pretty hard. Let me try again. That's just, I was, I just got confused that time because I was looking at the arrangement of the magnets on my fridge. It's in a very odd arrangement,. I was wondering when that happened. All right. You intentionally walk Contreras to load the bases. And then Joe Madden pinch hits with whatever righty is on his bench.

You bring in whatever righty is in your bullpen. Madden pinch hits now with Coghlan, who is better than Montero, facing a righty who is presumably worse than Blanton. And you've now burned two relievers in a tie game that might end up going a long time and left them Montero. And so maybe that wouldn't have worked out as well as I thought. You still end up in the same situation. You still end up with a lefty facing a righty with the bases loaded in two outs. So I don't think that you making the right, I don't think there were better pitching changes. I will, fine, I will say there weren't better

pitching changes to be made. That is a different question than whether you should intentionally walk the bases loaded in a tie game in order to set up a not that favorable matchup to get the other team's reliever out of the game. Now, if you don't get Chapman out of the game, then Chapman is in the next inning, which is bad. But on the other hand, it's not like Hector Rondon isn't phenomenal, too. So, you know, they still have another reliever. However, the counter to that is that, as I said before, it's a tie game. The game is most likely going to go multiple innings. And if you get Chapman out an inning earlier and Rondon comes in, well,

that's one fewer inning that they can go to Chapman or Rondon. So I guess it still makes sense. There's fine arguments that I don't agree with, I guess is where I'm getting. It's really aggressive. It's really, really aggressive. And I think that maybe it seemed like A good idea because it was Aggressive But it wasn't Maybe We should change the subject Because that took a long time to get through Alright

Let's see, what else about the series Do you think there's a limit We talked about this during our Simulcast on Friday night For Patreon supporters during the ALCS game, but we're sort of finding out whether there is a limit to gone to relievers so far. And that's kind of what people like us have been calling for for a while. But now we're getting to the point where these guys are being asked to do things that we haven't seen them be asked to do before. So the same goes for Clayton Kershaw, of course. So would you continue to push them as hard as they have been pushed thus far? I guess, given how things went on Sunday with Kershaw and Jansen

So far there are no ill effects From this so obviously you have to care About what happens in the future Or at least for Kershaw you do Because Jansen's a free agent right But other than That those future concerns You keep pushing these guys as hard

As they have been pushed you use Kershaw On short rest again. You keep throwing Jansen for two innings. You don't worry that you're going to gas them before you get to the World Series. I think that you have to consider that the best evidence that we have that gassing has occurred is Kershaw coming out last night when he did. Kershaw coming out last night when he did. I don't think that in a normal situation, I don't think they pull Kershaw at 80 pitches of one of his best starts in such a huge moment to bring in Kenley Jansen for another multi-inning, two-inning save. And I mean, really, they were talking about, I mean, they started what they started talking about Jansen getting up, like when he was in the seventies, when Kershaw

was in the seventies. And I think that there's obviously you and I tend to be in the camp of pulling starters earlier than you might traditionally pull starters, even when they're pitching well, but I don't know that that's, well, it's Kershaw. I don't even know if I believe that when it comes to Kershaw, because Kershaw puts up reliever numbers. And I don't think, you know, traditionally I just don't think that you would expect to see Kershaw there. So it seems like semi-strong evidence that they're taking care of him a little bit more than they would have if he hadn't, for instance,

pitched in relief three days ago. I also think that it's quite likely that he'll be pitching game five on short rest, especially if the Dodgers happen to be down 3-1. And so it's probably somewhat in anticipation of that as well. You don't want him throwing 115 pitches and then coming back on three days. So there is a limit that is being acknowledged. I think that's probably fair and good. But otherwise, I think you just ride them. I mean, nobody looks worse for it yet. And I mean, there really are a lot of off days, especially for the relievers. There are a lot of

off days. I don't know how far I'd let him. I don't know if I would have let Kenley Jansen throw 65 pitches, no matter how tense the situation was. But high 40s with a day off, I don't know. I feel like I just grew up watching Rod Beck, I think, doing this. And it just seemed like a thing that a reliever can do occasionally. That you can't live that way. You can't have that as your like lifestyle, but they're capable of it. And so I don't know, I, that's a long way of saying that I haven't seen anything like spook me. And I also haven't, there haven't been a lot of instances where guys were unavailable because they pitched a lot.

Man, it seems like managers have the ones that have been using their guys aggressively have been pretty good about doing it in situations where they have the next day off or they've been lucky and they haven't really needed them the next day. Uh, but we haven't had like a glut of instances where you're like, ah, that's why you don't use Andrew Miller for 64 pitches. Um, you know, how many, how many has Miller thrown in this series? Like four plus? Yeah, I mean, he never lets anyone on base, so that helps him get through innings pretty quickly. But yeah, he's thrown 31 pitches in the first outing, 24 in the second outing, 21 in the third outing, a total of five innings. So no one extreme outing.

Yeah, I don't know what the max is, but if this series went seven, you could see him getting to ten innings, right? Yeah, and then there's another seven-game series if it goes well for them. Day off in between. Yeah. Okay, all right. Call it a day. All right, so we will leave it there.

You can support the podcast on Patreon by going to patreon.com slash effectively wild. Five listeners who have already done so are David, William Marshall, Ian Swerka, Colleen Bauer, and Jim Gagan. We do plan to do one more simulcast this postseason. So we'll pick a game in one of the championship series or even wait till the world series. And we will talk during it for an audience of Patreon supporters at the $10 level or higher. We had a fun time on Friday. You can join our Facebook group at facebook.com slash groups slash effectively wild. And you can rate and review and subscribe to the podcast on iTunes.

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. And you can get the discounted price of $30 on a one-year subscription to the Play Index at baseballreference.com. Use the coupon code BP when you subscribe. You can contact me and Sam at podcastatbaseballperspectives.com or via Patreon. We will talk to you soon. I'm just no good at giving relief In the dark It won't be easy to find relief Among hitters, obviously Chris Bryant is the man.

His ISO's at 292. His weighted runs created plus of 153 last year is ridiculous. And his WOBA of 412 is off the charts. Sorry. You know what? That was 403. Damn. I'll get that.

Buster Posey. I'm going to stop right there for just a minute. No, I know. I blew that last one, but I'll get it tomorrow, okay? So, you know, don't worry. But otherwise? Good. I blew that last one, but I'll get it tomorrow, okay? So, you know, don't worry. But otherwise? Uh, good. Yeah?

A little bit too much jargon. You kind of sound like a stat head and not a baseball player. Be a baseball player. And you want to appeal to the average fan. Think of the 10-year-old kid or the grandmother watching. Right, okay, yeah. You know, I was just trying to put a little flavor in there, you know, a little signature style.

But if you think I should adjust it, I could. It was unintelligible. All right. All right, I'll work on it.