Rates & Barrels - One Game 3 From the Wild Card Round & Three Teams Sent Packing

Episode Date: October 3, 2024

Eno and DVR discuss the action from Day 2 of the Wild Card Round which featured three teams advancing -- including the Tigers, Royals and Padres -- and just one series -- Mets v. Brewers -- that will head to a decisive Game 3. With Division Series previews on tap for Friday's episode, they also examine the offseason questions facing the Astros, Orioles and Braves as those teams begin to focus on 2025. Rundown 1:43 Jackson Chourio & Garrett Mitchell Send Brewers-Mets to Game 3 8:32 The Surprising Season of Tobias Myers; Any Wrinkles for Game 3? 15:30 The Orioles' Swift October Exit & A Big Offseason Looming 29:51 The Tigers' Johnny Wholestaff Approach Wins in Game 2 41:11 Big Offseason Questions Looming for the Astros 47:46 The Padres Pile On Early Against Max Fried to Advance 54:06 Atlanta's Offseason Questions Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper e-mail: [e-mail] Join our Discord: https://discord.gg/FyBa9f3wFe Subscribe to The Athletic: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Hosts: Derek VanRiper & Eno Sarris Producer: Brian Smith Executive Producer: Derek VanRiper Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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With opening moves, you simply choose a question to be automatically sent to your matches. Then sit back and let your matches start the chat. Download Bumble and try it for yourself. Welcome to Rates and Barrels, it's Thursday, October 3rd. Derek VanRyper, you know, Saris here with you on this episode. We discuss a game three, only one game three in the wild card round. It's coming from the Mets Brewer series. We'll talk about how we got here and what we expect to see on Thursday night in a standalone

game. We got three teams sent packing on Wednesday, three teams advancing into the division series round. So we have a full division series episode coming out on Friday. So today is going to be a lot about game three between the Mets and Brewers. It's going to be a little bit about the teams that were sent packing on Wednesday, what's next for them in the off season,

and a little bit of discussion about this wild card round format, because now we're at the point, you know, we have seen 11 out of the 12 wild card series that have been played since 2022, and where the first team winning wins the entire series, right? And that could still happen.

The Mets could end up doing it in three games. So it's been a tough road in these last three seasons combined. If you lost game one, we'll see if the Brewers can buck that trend. If you go back to 2020, we had expanded playoffs in that shortened season. There were some three game series that year. Two teams that lost game one actually advanced through the wild card round so we'll talk about that a little bit later on in the show If you'd like to join our discord the link is in the show description lots of conversation around these games happening there Let's begin in

Milwaukee Jackson Churio did some Babe Ruth stuff Homered twice to tie the game. Babe Ruth was the last player to do that in a playoff game. Jackson Churio did it last night. It was a wild ride. How did we get here? Well, another pretty good we factor.

This Mets team plays some pretty exciting games, man. They can get punched in the mouth and get back up again, but in this case, the punches came too late to really respond. The Churio game-tying homer and then the Garrett Mitchell basically game-winning homer. Pretty amazing stuff there and you know for Churio it's it's been you know just a season of adjustments. He didn't start out this season as good as he is right now. And it's been amazing to watch how much growth you can get in one year.

And with Mitchell, he's been hurt for most of the year. So, you know, he hasn't had that same opportunity to grow over the course of this year. But maybe there's less of a book on him, less of a knowledge of how to get him out. And so, you know, that was just a really great moment for him. He also seems maybe to be by temperament, the kind of guy that rises to the occasion. Yeah, a very, very calm demeanor doing the interview

after hitting that go ahead home run in the dugout too. Now the amazing thing that I saw that I didn't realize was even a thing until ESPN put it up on the broadcast. The Brewers had a 42 year streak of losing any playoff game in which they trailed entering the seventh inning that went all the way back to the 1982 World Series when they played the Cardinals. They erased a four run deficit late to win that game. They didn't win that series, of course. So there's all of that. And then it got me wondering,

I got down the stat head rabbit hole just for a little bit. I thought, what's the biggest deficit a team has erased in the playoffs after the start of the seventh inning? That was the Philadelphia A's erasing a seven run deficit against the Cubs in the 1929 World Series. So can you imagine how awful you would feel with a lead that big that late losing in a World Series game?

Yeah, I can't imagine that at all. I mean, in this one, it was, I think it was born a little bit of just tired bullpen. I don't know. Manaya pitched well. Montaz pitched pretty well. Then the Brewers went to kind of a whole staff to get the last four, five plus innings.

And maybe just a little bit less usage on their part put them in a position to succeed. Yeah, it was a wild one, though, for sure. And another one of those games where the Mets were stringing together a lot of singles. It's a frustrating thing to watch if you have a rooting interest in a game when it's working against you. It got me wondering though, kind of because you said something about this with the Tigers approach against Framber Valdez in game one of that Tigers Astros series, at what point does a team come in with an approach

That's different based either on the opposing starting pitcher or even on the way that a team Aligns its defense because when I was watching this game Doug Glanville mentioned Starling Marte went kind of opposite Side to the infield a lot of the Mets righties have been slapping the ball through the right side of the infield You and I were looking at some of the things that the Brewers like to do. Positionally speaking, Bryce Terang does play pretty close to the second base bag. He has a lot of range as a gold glove caliber second baseman, so it makes sense to maybe try and take away as much as possible. But I wondered how much of that is approach, how much of that is situational hitting and

just being able to make the adjustments and what percentage of it is also just luck and just the things that can happen just by simply putting the ball in play. Yeah, I mean, if you look at Starling Marte's chart for the year, then you would play him as close to second base as possible because if he goes to the opposite field, and he does,

he has a pretty even spray chart, but if he goes to the opposite field, and he does, he has a pretty even spray chart, but if he goes the opposite field, it's a line drive. And so you're just less likely to defend that, in terms of, I'm eyeballing this, but I would say 80% of his ground balls are to the poolside or up the middle. And so that's why you would have your second baseman play there regularly.

But the other thing that I know about Starling Marte is that he's decent against breaking balls. And one of the things you can do against breaking balls is kind of fillet them, kind of do this like inside out swing and go the opposite field with them. And that's kind of what he did. I would say that if you're getting single to death, there's a certain amount of luck involved. That's going to come up again later in the show. say that if you're getting single to death, there's a certain amount of luck involved that's going to come up again later in the show. Yeah, like the directional hitting, like broadly speaking, yes, doable. Like you can pull, you can try to hit it back up the middle, you can try to go the opposite way.

But with precision, that's the part where you just, you don't have that much control. From a modeling standpoint, the single is the hardest single event, the hardest individual event to predict in baseball. Because you're talking about things like what is the infield dirt like? Is it soft? Did they water it well? Are you in Arizona? Was it Arizona with the roof open and the roof closed?

These things all matter for a single. Whereas doubles and homers, yes, there are park effects, but not as many. It doesn't matter as much on a double or a homer where the person's standing that's defending it. A lot of times you hit that ball 110. That guy's not going to get a chance to get at it. If you hit the ball 400 feet, okay. That's easy to model because that's probably a homer So singles are you know, they're hit

60 70 80 feet and they can bounce in all sorts of directions and maybe Terrain takes a couple steps over to the other side next time those guys are up and maybe gets him or then maybe they pull It past where he used to be Right they go up the middle and just goes over the bag and get the hit that way. That's right where he used to be. So that's why you play the percentages and you have to rank up the middle. So the matchup for game three, Jose Quintana going for the Mets, Tobias Myers getting the start for the Brewers in any elimination game for pretty much any team. You expect a relatively quick hook. I think with both of these starters, you would even nudge that up to an above

average threshold for how quickly they might exit the game if they find trouble because there's no tomorrow for whichever team loses this game. Now, as far as a game plan goes, the Brewers have seen a lot of Jose Quintana over the years at various stages of his career. I think Tobias Myers is the the bigger wild card for me in a situation like this, because I think even the loftiest of expectations anyone would have had for him internally have been exceeded this year. I mean, entering spring training, he was buried in the depth chart.

He's gone on to have a really kind of key role for this division winning team. And you look at how he does it, it's very much like a kitchen sink, multiple fastballs kind of thing. It's not necessarily overpowering stuff. How do you think Myers is going to try and utilize this arsenal against this Mets lineup? There's a pretty cool tweet out there by Steven Brown. He's talking about decision points in the baseball perspective stuff model The fact that batters have a really hard time distinguishing between the foreseeing the cutter and the slider

From Tobias Myers and it's interesting because yeah His fastball has about three inches more ride than usual and his cutter has five inches more ride than the average cutter And then the slider has more ride than the average cutter and then the slider has less drop than the average cutter and so to some extent you could say oh these pitches aren't very well you know separated you know sometimes that works in your favor the pitches are closer together in terms of movement then you know maybe they come out very similar and then it's it's hard to differentiate and for what it's worth you, Jose Quintana is also throwing the most sinkers of his career and has become a too fastball guy.

So both these guys are going to, to some extent you're living on the margins because somebody could see the VELO and guess incorrectly but still get a squibber. It probably doesn't lead to as many misses as it leads to like soft contact. You know what I mean? Like if you guess for same and got cutter, you're maybe not missing it completely, but you're not hitting it hard.

But in the post season, it could lead to a couple singles, a bunch of singles in a row, you know? So that's part of why Tobias Myers and Jose Quintana have below average strikeout rates But this year had decent years part of it is you know they have you can point to old-school analysis They oh Quintana has a low batting average on balls and play and he's been lucky there And you know both that you know Quintana has a 19% strikeout rate and Tobias Myers has a 22% They're both striking out guys below average rates

It's not going to continue to some extent there are some evidence that this could continue and it has to do with you know, sort of deceptive fastball mixes and Mixing and messing up the decision point for hitters so that they're gonna miss hit these balls Yeah I'm really interested to see just how much the Mets are, at least the first time to the order, if they're fooled at all by the Tobias Myers arsenal because they have not seen him during the regular season.

He didn't join the rotation early enough for them to see him in the first series of the year. So I also wonder, too, like if they sit fastball, are we going to see a different version of the Mets where the long ball becomes a much bigger part of how they put runs on the board on Thursday night? I think that's sort of the fear in the back of my mind, because Tobias Meyers does give up a lot of homers

on that four seamer in particular. 13 homers allowed, he throws that pitch about 40% of the time, it doesn't have premium velocity. So if he doesn't get the adrenaline bump we see a lot of pitchers get from the postseason, that could be a spot where he's particularly vulnerable, at least situations where the Mets are anticipating four seamers.

We may see him really cut it. One thing we've seen so far in the postseason, Lance Brodsky has a tweet today where postseason four seam usage, which is separate from the regular season, you know, the regular season foreseam usage is even higher than it is in postseason, but it's been, you know, around 33 to 35% the last two years. This year, postseason foreseam percentage is down 25%, so down 10 percentage points from last year in the postseason.

And a big part of that is sinker uptick, but also a slider uptick. So you could see Myers feature the slider more and he does throw a curveball 4% of the time. If he features the slider more, he's got to play off of that. Right. So he could go, you know, cut or slide or curve and kind of surprise him a little bit. In triple A, Tobias Myers was throwing the curve ball

12% of the time, almost three times more than he's been throwing in the major leagues. So he's fairly comfortable with that curve ball and that could be a wrinkle he throws into the mix. I just wanna shout out to Myers for sticking with it, man. He was drafted in the sixth round in 2016 by the Baltimore Orioles Ended up with the the Rays for most of his eligibility And then near the end when you know, he's being

Dfa'd off rosters and stuff it goes Tampa Chicago White Sox in 2022 Cleveland in 2022 the Giants in 2022, till the Brewers claim him and they don't even claim him and put him in the major leagues, they claim him and put him in double A for 2023. And he starts this year in triple A, 18 innings before he gets his first taste of the big leagues. So that's what you call stick-to-it-iveness. his first taste of the big league. So that's what you call stick-tuitiveness. Yeah, hopefully for the sake of Tobias Meyers and for Brewers fans out there,

we'll see some more nice chapters to his 2024 story, but it'll be a tall order for him here in elimination game in game three. I'm going to assume you're gonna stick with your original prediction of the Mets taking this game because I'm sticking by my original Brewers prediction for this one. Yeah, I'm a little bit less excited about putting my money down on Hosea King Town. But I'll stick to it. I'll stick to it. Our predictions so far are projections predictions everything. We've been pretty bad Yeah, I thought all the teams that lost

Four game threes there. I thought we'd have four. We only got one. Hey, at least I got one I got one right at the one that is dearest to my heart This is an ad for better help. Welcome to the world. Please read your personal Owner's Manual thoroughly. In it you'll find simple instructions for how to interact with your fellow human beings and how to find happiness and peace of mind. Thank you and have a nice life. Unfortunately life doesn't come with an Owner's Manual. That's why there's BetterHelp online therapy. Connect with a credentialed therapist by phone, video or online chat. Visit betterhelp.com to learn more. That's betterHELP.com. College football is back like never before. I'm David

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You can find us wherever you listen to your podcasts. The Orioles are killing me, man. I don't believe in team hot and cold streaks. That's why I've been, I picked the Orioles are killing me, man. I don't believe in team hot and cold streaks. That's why I've been, I picked the Orioles, you know, because I barely believe in player hot streaks. And we've been trying to identify player hot streaks for a long time and there's been little inklings. You know, anybody listening knows that there's been some stuff about pitching. It's possible there's sort of a pitching hot hand. I've told you the clutch story a million

times, so I don't think there's really a hot hitter hand, but maybe you can feel good for a while. But a team is a collection of 26 players. How could a team go cold? How could 26 players go cold at the same time? And even if you just, you separated hitting and pitching, because the Orioles actually pitch pretty well. How could nine guys go cold at the same time? And they didn't really, because Gunnar didn't go cold all year.

But there's been something, there's something going on there. I don't know what it is. Maybe a book develops for the Orioles over the course of a season. Maybe they've gotten tired, maybe they don't prepare them for full seasons in the minors, maybe they sit them too much,

do too much load management in the minors. I don't know, there's too much there right now to be like there's nothing there, you know what I mean? Yeah, so, all right, let's go in reverse order on this one. So the Royals knocked out the Orioles in two games. I think you could tell the story that the Orioles offense collapsed or you could say the Royals pitching just came through. I mean, look, Col Reagan's and Seth Lugo are good pitchers.

They both had very good seasons and they are certainly good enough to go out and beat any lineup in baseball, regardless of form. Like, that's the quality pitcher that they they bring to the table every time they take the ball. So I I don't know like it on the micro level everything gets kind of expanded and was oh what's wrong with the Orioles? Maybe they just ran into a couple of really good pitching performances and as you said the Orioles pitching was like almost good. Orioles pitching in a typical playoff matchup was good enough to win those two games. It's just they happened to pitch against a group that was a tick better. You know, I think the real opportunity

for the Orioles to shine was Zerpa, Schreiber, Sam Long. Yeah, absolutely. They had, they got Lugo out of the game early enough to get to the softer part of the Royals bullpen that they had traffic, they had an opportunity. And so there is an element of luck to it, whereas if you take a hit from a different inning and put it in one of those innings where they had traffic, then maybe we're telling a different story.

But overall, you'd expect a team that we thought had this, you know, then maybe we're telling a different story. But overall, you'd expect a team that we thought had this many studs. Like maybe we were just wrong and there's not as many studs. I mean, Adley Rutchman, for one, you know, maybe we just overrated his bat. I think there's a lot of moving parts here. I hate to use that word, by the way.

That's such an ugly word. Overrated? Yeah, I mean, I'm not saying that he's necessarily overrated because he's still a really good catcher and like an Important piece to the puzzle overall and he was still four percent better than the average with the bat for the season But I I do wonder you know it's funny because they're that's where Matt Weir's was Orioles fans are beside themselves today. Britt seared them pretty good. I don't need to bring up the name of Matt Weeders.

You bring Matt Weeders into this. You're going back to ghosts of Orioles past while the wounds of yesterday are still very fresh. That is harsh, unintentionally harsh, I think. But harsh nonetheless. The critiques of this team have been fairly well documented on this podcast. I think What I read Britt's column today the thing that I was probably most in agreement with was that the Orioles had a known problem in the bullpen at the trade deadline and you know while the Padres went out and got

Jason Adam and Tanner Scott while the Royals went out and got Jason Adam and Tanner Scott while the Royals went out and got Hunter Harvey, who's her and Lucas Ersig, who pitched in this series. The Orioles didn't go to that same level for their upgrades, right? And I think that's probably the thing that you could look back and say, they should have changed that. That wouldn't have changed the outcome of what happened with their bats in this series though, because if I'm being fair to the Orioles in my own analysis and what I thought of their team at the deadline, I didn't think they needed more bats.

Do we think they needed to get a bat? Absolutely not. Yeah, nobody thought they needed more bat, yeah. The thing we have all been saying for the last two years was when are they gonna trade some of their position player depth for more starting pitching, right? And they did address starting pitching. They got Zach Efflin.

Efflin pitched well. There weren't that many pitchers better than Zach Eflin that got moved at the deadline. So I do think there's always that question. We always wish we could be flies on the wall at the deadline. What deals did you pass on? The Trevor Rogers trade is so far a complete disaster. Again, Trevor Rogers wasn't going to hit though. And from some source saying they were in on Kikuchi.

So they drew a line at some point and weren't willing to go past him for Kakuchi. And so everybody, you know, and Asnos didn't advance so it's like, it's not like Kakuchi was the magic bullet, but they were more aggressive and got Kakuchi. And I think that would have made a little bit of a difference. I don't know if there would have been the difference in this one but they did talk about how at the beginning of the games the Orioles didn't have a lefty starter that would force the Royals to play some of their right-handed hitters over their left-handed hitters and Pascantino, you know was the kind of guy who? Might have been a different spot in the lineup or might have been in or out of the lineup, depending on if you had started, you say

Kikuchi. So there's a little bit of something there, but it's on the bats. We said this yesterday. If they don't score more than two, then it's on the bats. Yeah, and Vinny Pascuantino, by the way, ended up with two hard hit balls in these two games, which depending on the number of fully functioning fingers he has on his hands right now is pretty impressive. His bat speed was good. Yeah, so he's gutting it out at less than 100% and making it work, so I think you gotta give him

some credit for that. I think if you look at this team now and think about going to the playoffs each of these last two seasons and not winning a game. Last year they had the bye, they got swept in the divisional round. This year they get knocked out in the wild card round hosting both of those games and say, okay, where are you fixing this? You first have to just look at the big picture of what they've got on the roster.

Corbin Burns is a huge free agent. Do you think Corbin Burns is staying in Baltimore? I don't, not because they couldn't. They have room on the payroll. They have a new ownership group that's supposed to be much better than the last group. They were top 10 in payroll less than 10 years ago with the bad ownership group they had. So how quickly they're going to push and how much appetite they have ceiling wise to spend as an ownership group is an unanswered question. But I think you have to look at them as a team whose window is still open.

And if they're not aggressively pursuing upgrades via free agency and via trade throughout the winter, then I do think there is a risk that Brip alluded to that they could be a team like the Blue Jays where the window moves a little faster than you'd expect because you didn't keep adding when you had the opportunity to take a great core and make it better. You were too fascinated with the two timeline approach. You were too fascinated with making a sustainable winner and not fascinated enough with winning while you can when you have the chance. They have $37 million allocated next year before arbitration and some of their arbitration guys will get expensive. So Cedric Mullins will be expensive, Soto, Mountcastle. So there's some money there. I think you're talking about

maybe 30, 40 million dollars even in arbitration, guys. Oh, that brings them to 70 million dollars. And they were at 103 for this year. You know, they're not going to pick up the the Iloy Jimenez $16.5 million dollar option most likely. You know, I don't know, Seranthi Dominguez for $8 million? Probably. So, you know, now you're starting to get, oh, it's $80, $90. Like, they might have one big free agent in them, given historical trends. And they've spent more than they spent this year in the past.

Yeah, I don't know. I don't think they should go to bat next year without a high end starting pitcher though. Like this team will have a hole in it if they don't do something there. And that's even accounting for Grayson Rodriguez presumably recovering and being healthy for the start of next season. Zach Efflin being under contract for another year saying they still need to get one more under the assumption that Burns goes, right? If you lose Burns, you got to replace him with somebody.

You have to go after Max Fried. You have to make a trade. Is it trading one of your younger position players who's either played in the big leagues or not? Like someone in that group could go down as low as probably Samuel Bissallo as far as like your very high impact players. You can move and get something really good back for up to players we've seen in the big leagues.

I mean, if Santander leaves in free agency, which seems likely and move and get something really good back for up to players we've seen in the big leagues. I mean, if Santander leaves in free agency, which seems likely because of the depth they have, Heston Kirstead becomes more important unless you trade him. You have guys like Westberg who broke through and had a good year. You have options like trading Kobe Mayo, Jackson Holliday, like all those things are on the table. And then as you say those names, you start to say, OK, well, hitting was the problem, but they've got all these good young hitters. So if those guys, some combination of those guys get better

and they take on larger roles, then that alone could make the problem that crept up at the end of the season sort of go away in 2025. So it's an interesting spot to be in because you have to. Mayo is a better hitter than Urias. Then, you know, that matters in the games that they played. in 2025. So it's an interesting spot to be in because you have to choose which player you choose. Yeah, Mayo is a better hitter than Urias. Yeah. You know, that matters in the games that they played, you know. I would hold on to those guys, you know, see what I can do. If Corbin Burns makes you nervous because he's been such a sort of a horse in terms of innings that he might threaten for.

I don't know if he's going to get the coal contract specifically, but he might threaten for one of those really long, really expensive deals. He won't be in that Gossman Robbie Ray, you know, hundred and twenty five to one hundred fifty million dollar aspect. I don't think Corbin Burns is there. I think he's passed that. No, I think it's gonna cost you probably $200 million to keep Corbin Burns or to get Corbin Burns in free agency. It's gonna be over a reasonably long deal,

but it's gonna be a massive commitment. Yeah, so I think if I'm looking at replacing him, I wonder if I can go shopping with my $150 million deal. I don't know what Snell wants. I would say I would be interested in Blake Snell. There are at least fallback options, right? If you don't retain burns, this is an off-season where there's actually a few high-end starters that you could bring in and not feel terrible about missing out or losing the guy you had.

I think that's the thing you can take comfort in. If you get shut out on all of them, then you have that problem where maybe you're tapping into your depth of making a trade. So your first choice would be signing one of the top end starting pitchers as opposed to trading for one. But your backup plan would be to trade for one. I guess so, but they don't have a great track record. Yeah, well, there's always a chance to turn it all around.

The next trade is the opportunity to become better in that facet. The Rogers trade in particular is going to be here we go. Jack Flaherty, Shane Bieber. Now, that's an interesting one. Shane Bieber, give him a two-year deal you know so you can get back on the market maybe kind of like that one Louie Severino you say Kikuchi get a left-hander power left-hander he's not gonna cost that much more than 100 million he's 33 I kind of like the

Kikuchi one all right so you've got a few options. You've got a few paths. Felix Batiste comes back. That gives you a big lift the back into the bullpen as long as everything goes smoothly with the final stages of his recovery from Tommy John. So I don't think it's all it's a whole falling apart on the Orioles, but I do think they have a few critical decisions. They have to get right as they try and keep things rolling in

2025 and beyond We will talk more about the Royals and their matchup with the Yankees and what they accomplished just getting into that series on the episode On Friday, by the way, we should spend a little time on the Tigers. They did it They completed the two-game sweep of the Astros and they did it with the Johnny Holstaff approach. It was Tyler Holton for one. It was Brendan Hannity for one and two thirds. Then it was Brent Herter for one and two thirds. Then Bo Briskey, who finished game one, came in for one and two thirds. Then they went completely to the let's run this like fantasy baseball.

They brought in Jackson Job and I I loved it and Jackson Job got Babbipped and it looked like it didn't work all that well But Sean Gunther cleaned it up for one and two thirds and will vest got the final three outs I mean Johnny whole staffing it to Perfection really and that's that's the thing that we knew they wanted to do I Guess the thing that surprised me about it

And this is something that I want to see over the next series and beyond. Can this continue to work without strikeouts? We know that the Tigers might have some things they're doing to induce some weak contact. We talked about the low X Woba. Seeing different relievers that you're not familiar with that could also present some unique challenges like I can see that in longer series you're going to see those guys a second or a third time. That's going to change some things too. So I want to see how those dynamics play out. But I've looked back, I spent a lot of time on stat head. I warned you about this. I got down the rabbit hole a few times. Maybe this is a stupid stat. Maybe this qualifies

for our stupid stat of the day. But I saw that the Tigers are the fifth team in the wild card era. So that goes back to 1995 to win a playoff game while using seven or more pitchers and having five or fewer strikeouts. Because that was the number that I was surprised by. And that was the thing I was worried about as the postseason started. I thought, OK, the relievers get good results. Yeah, because they weren't the only team to win. The bullpen games have become more common.

Right. So I would be surprised by, oh, there were only seven teams that had seven relievers, but with the five strikeout thing, I get, yeah. Yeah, and the last time it happened, producer Brian might remember this, was the Giants. They did it to the Rangers in the World Series in 2010. That wasn't the Javier Lopez. You know who's on that one? That game was, that was game

one of the World Series. Yeah, so here's your fun trivia. Who pitched in that game for the Giants? Was that a Rob Nenner? No, not quite that far back. This look here. You got to remember the thing you remember is that in 2010, the rules were a lot different as far as how you could use relievers. Right. So they didn't do it the way the Tigers did. They actually had a pitcher go five and two thirds in that game.

It was game one. Tim Lintzikum started that game. They had like a lefty. They had a lefty specialist that would come in and just get one out. Oh yeah they did. Like I said Javier Lopez. You nailed it. Javier Lopez was on there. So it was Lincecum, Santiago Casillas, Sergio Romo, Javier Lopez, Ramon Ramirez, Jeremy Affelt and Brian Wilson.

And nobody after Casillas got more than two outs. That was an aesthetically miserable way to let baseball be played. That, let's be honest, that was brutal. It worked. I mean watching it is like, oh back to commercial, dude. I can't take any more political ads or Coligard ads. I can't. I can't see little box floating across the screen. I can't do it. It just, we have just, we have to stop the ads. I need new ads, please. Anything, anything new.

There is sort of a direct line from that Giants team to this Tigers team and just in terms of baseball, you know, the GM for the Tigers coming from San Francisco and San Francisco even recently being the mix and match. And and and Scott Bush even saying like we're going to do a lot of those things here in Detroit and then doing them. There is a link there even all the way back to 2010, I guess. But yeah, I mean, the Scott Harris Tigers looking like the Farhan giants

of a few years ago, not a big surprise given the similarities. Also think this is the way when you're not spending a lot of money to make your team better in a way that is pretty low risk. You're not asking ownership to throw big piles of money at players, you're just trying to get better on all the margins and that's the way it's working so far. So you tip your cap and this is really impressive

and I think there was a great quote in Cody Stevenhagen's story about Andy Ibanez who came through with the big basis clearing double that ultimately put the Tigers on top for good in this one. And Ibanez, you know, was asked, you know, could you imagine this moment? And he said, never, never, ever. I've been in the big leagues for a couple of years. Every time in the playoffs, I just watched the Astros on TV, which, you know, is kind of the perfect segue to like, hey, like this this team that's

surprising all of us, this Tigers team just knocked out one of the best modern teams we've ever seen, one of the best teams of all time. And yeah, this Astros team wasn't as good as some of those peak ones, but it wasn't a bad squad at all. And to do that against Josh Hader, too, a guy that's been one of, in the regular season, one of the most dominant relievers of the last decade, to see his playoff woes continue is also kind of a surprising plot twist. He's one of the, like, you know, there's always somebody that, in the postseason, that, you know, like, even like a Soler like, you know, there's always, there's always somebody that in the postseason that, you know, like even, even like a solar winning, you know, the world series MVP is a little surprising, but there's always, there's always that like, the player that gets hot and you know, the team's becomes like the, like the Jose Iglesias of the Mets where it's like, you know, he almost becomes a rally monkey for the team, you know, embodies that sort of anything can happen mentality.

But, you know, one thing that was interesting about the way that I saw them using their relievers in this game was it wasn't necessarily like, we'll use this lefty, it was far removed in some ways from the Giants using a lefty to get a lefty out and then bringing it, you know what I mean? Like, Brant Herter came on and he started with Kyle Tucker and Jordan Alvarez. So, like, that's the old school mentality, right? You bring him on to get two lefties.

But then he stays in and gets Bregman, Diaz, Pena, those are three right-handers. And he stays in another thing to get Dubon, McCormick, and Altubes, two right-handers. So he's getting a lot of right-handers out. What it is is more, we're gonna use Herter as if he was Jeremy Affleck for Kyle Tucker and Jordan Alvarez, right?

And then we're gonna leave him in against the lesser players, right? And just hope that he can maybe give up a single to Bregman or Diaz and then get Karatini and Pena out. You know what I mean? And like, just get through this. And so it's a little bit more like a one time through the order strategy,

where everybody gets one time through the order, as opposed to just really optimizing the single matchups of Herter versus Tucker, that's what we want. That is what they wanted, but they started with that, and then they let Herter go as long as he could, you know And I think that the reason job had to come in where he was Was that Bo briskey pitched the night before and you'd already used him for now five outs So you don't want to use him any longer and you run up against Karatina

Pena and altuve in that in that inning you see those righties and you want a righty in there. But you don't necessarily want to go to Will Vest yet. So that was a soft spot for them. And Joe, I thought, pitched well and got a little unlucky and there's some babbitt stuff and he made it through, so with a little help. But Gunther was going to come in anyway. And Gunther was probably going to come in against Tucker, cause that's a lefty and then Gunther, you're on Alvarez lefty. So Gunther was, so they had those lefties circled and they had lefties ready to fight,

face those lefties, but they made every lefty into a longer lever. So anyway, I think it's, it's related to that, those, that old Giants team, but it's a little bit different too. The other thing I want to point out with Brennan Herter, and I think this is something teams are going to start doing more often, because I think it's a path to eventually develop extra starters, or at least to develop more pitchers

that can get you three or four innings at a time, which are becoming a little more popular again in recent years, it's the wider arsenal, right? So it's sink or sweep or change up and four seamer. And that's even the thing, the change up and the four seamer are basically only used by Brandon Herter against righties. So he's got four pitches he can throw against righties. He's got two when he's lefty on lefty.

Two is enough for lefty-lefty matchups. You need a couple extra wrinkles if you don't have excellent stuff to give up the platoon advantage and still be out there. But I think that makes a pretty big difference. You know, it's like the value of extra pitches in a bullpen roll versus as a starting roll. I think we have to weight them a little bit differently

because if you're only going through the lineup one time, those pitches maybe don't have to be quite as good when you're using them to steal a strike or using them in a situation just to keep somebody off balance, right? You can get away with it a little bit more. Yeah, and Slider's still his best pitch, so he's gonna use that against both sides.

And you're right that, you know, his changeover fastball don't rate well, but again, when you're trying to get through the lineup the first time, like this is, think of what it's like to be Jeremy Pena, and you're just seeing a different pitcher every inning. You can say to him, hey, his changeover fastball aren't good, you're a right-hander, you should be able to see something and hit it, but you're seeing him for the first time.

So you're just like, you want to sit in there and say, let me see a couple pitches. Oh, well now it's, you know, 0-2 or 1-1 and, you know, now I'm in trouble. I mean, if you had told me going into this game Hunter Brown's gonna have 16 swinging strikes and he's gonna go more than five innings and we're gonna give him a one earn run. I've been like the Astros won. They won the game. So game three's happening right? What time's game three?

Is game three the early game or the late game? That's what I would have asked you. That was the game that I was on duty for and I was writing the takeaways and we were gonna maybe do like a live headline during the game. And I was always I was writing about Hunter Brown the whole time. And then I just scrap, you know, 300 words I had on Hunter Brown. So you want to be a baseball writer, get used to rewrite. They happen, especially this time of year. Houston's got a few big questions looming, I think earlier in the year,

especially their slow start made us wonder if they were beginning to enter some sort of decline phase. The way Jim Crane has talked about not wanting to rebuild and his increase in the payroll over time. You can look at that and kind of believe in it for now. I think the questions start to creep in when you say, okay, well, they got a few major free agents. I mean, Alex Bregman, big salary, but also a guy that's really important to that team

and been there for this entire window You say Kikuchi who they traded for Justin Verlander who after the game said he's not ready to step away He had a player option that did not vest because he needed 140 innings to get there get to 90 and a third So you consider that Verlander was being paid about 12 million by the Astros this year the Mets picked up the rest of that Salary, which is a huge chunk and then you get the Bregman money. You have some flexibility, but you do have a couple of things you have to address with that money. I imagine they continue pushing for more.

The hardest thing for me to look at with the Astros right now is the position player group, and say who in the position player group gets better than they are already? Like do they have young players that are on the position player group gets better than they are already. Like do they have young players that are on the roster that we like? Do they have prospects that are close that are going to be impact guys? I don't necessarily think they do on the position player side. I think the biggest thing is that a full healthy season of Kyle Tucker in twenty

twenty five is going to be worth a couple extra wins they didn't get for all the time he missed this year. But I do think they have some work to do if they want to hold their position as one of the better teams in the A.L. West, maybe a gift to them for another year. So that could be something that keeps them afloat and keeps their long window of being in the playoffs open. But I think for them to remain as dangerous as they've been in recent years, they're going to have to figure out a way to either keep Bregman and get one more upgrade

in the lineup or somehow upgrade what they had in the lineup and do that despite losing Bregman. If they extend Bregman, I mean, that's a post-peak guy. So then they'll have Altuve, Bregman. They're still paying Lance McCullers and Christian Javier a chunk of change. Between the four of those guys, they'll have 100, 115 million. I don't know exactly what Bregman's number's

gonna look like. They're gonna have like 100 million at least, like lined up. And if you throw Hader in there, 120 million, they're gonna be in that for four or five years. That reminds me a little bit It's reminds me a little bit of the Padres situation. We're like looks great now, but you know do Two or three years from now. Do you want to be in the middle of?

five-year extensions for Altuve Bregman hater McCullers and Javier and have a hundred plus million dollars on their shoulders and be Looking for your Jackson Merrill. Right. I think it's you still need the young guys to come up and be better like you're mentioning because those guys will only get worse as as they're under contract. I don't even know.

Like it's a 50 50 for me if McCullers even pitches again. I mean with the way that his injury history is it's been pretty extreme. So we might be seeing some decline in Hayter too. I mean, that's such a great fastball, but it relies somewhat on deception. Maybe the more people see it, the more they say, hey, you know what? This isn't a sinker. I know about his arm slot. All I got to do is think ride, ride, ride when I'm at the plate, get on top of the ball. That's even what the announcers were saying. Get on top of that ball. If people are just gonna get better at hitting Hayter,

then you've got four years of $100 million of players that are only getting worse. And I think that's gonna be part of the conclusion is like, maybe we can't sign Bregman, not necessarily because he won't be good in the next two years, because he's gonna want five or six years and that doesn't really line up that well with all of our other declining guys.

So I wouldn't be surprised if Bregman doesn't come back. And then if they try to fix that internally, do bond like a starting third baseman for them, that's a step back for them offensively, of which maybe a Kyle Tucker full year of Kyle Tucker could could help them. But Kyle Tucker will be in his last year as well. So there's a little bit of a sunset on this Astros team when I look at the payroll and the ages of the players. I mean, naturally it happens to everybody eventually

you have success for a long time. Players get expensive, some guys retire. Just all those things happen. It's not, it's like you're not getting like top five picks to replenish them and top five picks do much better than any other pick in the draft. So well, and that's where scouting and player development, especially position players, I think is more of a question in Houston right now.

Can they start to replenish that way, especially being still late in the draft order, relatively speaking? One last thought on Hader. The results overall in the postseason are still better than you'd think. You just have a few key moments that you might remember from Hayter being on the mound that didn't go well. And one of those was a really oddly hit ball against the Nats, the Juan Soto ball that got Trent Grisham and ate him up, right? That was a weird sequence. But Hayter actually has good results in the post-season overall. Last thing people wanna hear the day after

something didn't go well. 164 career ERA in the post-season, 33 Ks in 22 innings, a.91 whip. He's just as good in the playoffs as he is in the regular season. In the science of the Hayter fastball thing too, the pitching coach himself said that it's pretty important that he keeps it high in the zone. He gives the hitters a chance when he's low in the zone.

That pitch that he gave up the double on to Ibanez was center cut but also a little bit low. I mean that center cut is low for what Hayter wants to do. He wants to live in the top third. So it wasn't a real well placed one. I think the big flaw with Hayter is just command. He didn't want that pitch where he put it. And then he walks guys and puts pressure on himself. I mean he did that as well

So to clarify my earlier statement It's that it's surprising that for as dominant as hater is we have a few particularly Distinct memories of him not coming through in some critical spots even though He's been very good overall in the aggregate in the postseason Let's shift the focus over to the Padres. They advance with a two game sweep of Atlanta. Money Mike tried to make it interesting and we were talking a little earlier

just about the frustration you can feel when you're rooting for a team and the bloopers, the balls that find gaps, softly hit balls that find gaps happen and then something good happens around that. That's exactly what happened in the second inning, right? I mean, the Padres and this was happening in the first two. Max Fried escaped it in the first, but in the second inning, a couple of squibbers like

Purifar and I think even Tatisse both get on base before Manny Machado rips a double and the Padres turn that second inning into a big one. That made a huge difference. And it's just one of those things, getting bad at the worst possible time, there's nothing you can do about it. Max Fried's potential final outing with the Braves looks so bad on paper, but when you watch that start,

you're like, man, you got hit by a comebacker, had a bunch of dribblers, the Padres were pretty aggressive on the base pass, there were a couple of close plays that were inches away from maybe going the other way and changing those innings. Is that column, that column, that third column is how far it went. The Tatis Jr. and Profar hits went two feet

and three feet respectively, with a minus 56 and minus 42 degree launch angle. Like what else can you do as a pitcher in those situations? Like I guess don't allow the contact in the first place, but of the contact you could allow. Like that's about as much as you can ask for. One thing that stuck out to me, and I wish I was able to figure this out,

finagle this out of savant, but I wasn't, is I would love to see if home sprint speeds in the playoffs are higher than usual. If there's a sprint speed postseason boost, because there were a few opportunities there where like Tatis when he was safe at second, I was like, that was a really close play. He should have been out. Situationally, it looked like he was out until you looked at it and you're like, oh, he's safe. Right. Like your instincts watching the play were like, okay, they got the out at second. And you're like, way like he was out until you looked at it. Oh, you say, but like, right. Like your instincts watching the player like, OK, they got the out at second.

And you're like, no, he was there. And then you kind of go, why? Like, why was he there? Did he get a great secondary lead? Did he get a jump? Was it a hit and run? Like, what what do we not see? They showed it. He did kind of he was out there. But I think he just ran fast.

There's a if there's an adrenaline boost that impacts pitcher velocity, I would imagine there's an there's an adrenaline boost that impacts pitcher velocity, I would imagine there's an adrenaline boost that impacts your sprint speed. There'd have to be. Yeah, I just wonder if there's also like home away splits on that. Do you get bat speed boosts in the postseason too from the adrenaline? Bat speed I might be able to get Cokes out of Savant for one of our episodes, but sprint speed is weird because it's on the basis. So it's not something that is Savant is very focused on what happens at the plate in terms of how you do searches. I think the carryover from this for the Padres,

Joe Musgrove left with right elbow tightness according to Dennis Lin. And that could end up being a pretty big deal given how well he was pitching down the stretch. They have good pitching depth, they've got a great bullpen. It's not a massive, like if they don't have Musgrove, it's all over it, that kind of thing. But that was sort of the the one damper on the Padres win.

And we'll see. I think for me, it's just sad because, you know, he's San Diego native, he's through the first no hitter, you know, like they love him in San Diego. He should be part of this. So hopefully it's something smaller, but it didn't look small. He threw the two slowest curve balls of his career, I think, before they took him out of the game. That's not a good sign.

Assuming that Dylan Cease is completely healthy and they were just playing it to have him available for game three if they need it, but have him lined up for the start of the DS against the Dodgers and he'll go in game one, right? Like that's gotta be the obvious sort of play there. We've been looking at that for the last of the DS against the Dodgers, and he'll go in game one, right? Like that's gotta be the obvious sort of play there. We've been looking at that for the last couple of days and saying, well, it's pretty stealthy if that works out.

So let's just make sure there's actually nothing wrong with Dylan Cease before we pat the Padres in the back. Well, I take Dylan Cease over Jack Flaherty. Yeah. I'm gonna take maybe Yamamoto over whoever starts game two, but not a game that's, you know, 60 40. That could be Michael King, though, because that'll be regular rest for Michael King. Closest to 50 50, I would say, you know, but maybe Yamamoto by a nose.

And then I'm taking the Padres in every other game of the series in terms of starting pitching, even with the loss of Musgrove. I think what you just do if you don't want to go on short rest with anybody is you throw Martin Perez in the last thing and you just have a very quick hook. Maybe he only goes two innings. But he's a credible enough pitcher where if he goes through the lineup and gives you two innings, maybe he gives you three. Maybe he gives you four.

When I ran the numbers and found that the Padres had the best park neutral projections in the bullpen, I only used four relievers. You know who didn't even make it into that four relievers? Is Brian Hoeing and Adrian Morohan. So you go Martin Perez and it's righty, lefty, righty. You go Martin Perez, you go Brian Hoeing, you go Adrian Morohahan. You tell me you can't get four or five good innings out of that, those three pitchers? I feel like you can't.

So even if they have to get forced to do that a couple times this postseason, I'm not trying to be negative about the Tigers. It's been amazing. But I would take that over, you know, what the Tigers just won with, with like Holton and Herter and everything, I would take that most times. I feel like if you rack that a bunch of times, the simulation would give you more wins for the Padres. You only gotta rack it once. You only get to rack it once. Life is like that, you only get to rack it once.

Sorry, you don't get a thousand simulations this one. You get one and do your best. And you said you're doing your best this morning. So I, hey, that's all we can ask for, right? You don't get all the other simulations. Well, let's see, playoffs and you're sick. Atlanta's got a few questions as we approach the off season.

I mean, the health of Chris Sale is one that we're gonna kind of keep an eye on because he's really important to them beyond whatever was gonna happen to them this year. Freed maybe pitched his last game as a member of the Braves, that's a big question. The window is still open in Atlanta, right? You get Ronald Acuna Jr. back from the ACL

to second ACL tear, but he should be back with a pretty normal spring training. Austin Riley's back next year. You have some questions about some of the struggles of guys that were in the lineup this year, but they were a very banged up team in 2024. Just better health alone with the core they already have under control. They're still a contender. And that's even with the possibility of Freed leaving because I don't get the sense that Alex Anthopolis just sits there and lets

Freed leave without getting another starter to help fill that void. The number I'm looking at right now says 197 already put together for the luxury tax next year. I don't think that includes the club options and I think they will pick up the Marcelo Azuna, which is 16 million. I don't know about the Travis Darno for eight and I don't know about the Bummer for seven, but if you just split the difference and say they'll pick up at least one of those, that's 25 million that they're gonna add to the 197.

So they're already at 220, and the luxury tax apron's at 237. The next one's at 257. This year they were at 232, so if you say they're willing to go into the luxury tax one time, then they can go get one of the top end starters. If not, I think they're just hoping for a return to health and patching together a starting rotation, but it won't be anywhere as good.

It'll be sale, Schwannlebach, Strider at some point. That's good enough if you make it to the postseason. So maybe they'll say, hey, if we go get a Zac Eflin type and we go spend $15 million on a mid-rotation starter that gets us to the postseason, in the postseason we're hoping to have sale in Strider and Schwalbebach and that's our postseason roster. So we just need to have someone who gets us there. That might be what they do is instead of spending at the top end of the starting pitching situation,

they spend in the middle. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. They have a lot of relievers still coming back too. So that bullpen, which was really good throughout the season is pretty much all coming backs. Does Nick Paveda get, you know? I think Nick Paveda is a free agent according to SportTrack. That'd be pretty interesting.

Nick Paveda not being in an Extreme Hitters park would be a good thing to see for the first time in his career. Also I'm not sure that it includes Charlie Morton, so I mean you could just sign Charlie Morton maybe for a little bit less than 20 million and have him be the guy that gets you there. The way Charlie Morton's, I saw the quotes from Charlie Morton, maybe for a little bit less than 20 million and have him be the guy that gets you there. The way Charlie Morton's I saw the quotes from Charlie Morton after the game. That sounds like a guy. He sounded like he's going to retire. Moving on.

He's he said this before. He sounded like that before. But is it just creating that doubt? I don't like to play that game a little bit. I don't know. It was it wasn't his best season. But like you if you looked at what he did you you think he could he has more In him right now. I mean at least as a back-end starter sure Right, and I'm just talking about get you there starters So which is and maybe he just thinks like if they're only gonna give me ten million dollars

I mean, I know that sounds like a lot but like, you know, he's made a bunch of money and his kids are That sounds like a lot, but like, you know, he's made a bunch of money and his kids are kid age. And I'm sure that's the sort of stuff he was talking about. So am I going to come out here and kind of struggle through another season and then maybe be left off the playoff roster? Right. Yeah. Is it fun like to know that might be the situation going in? I mean, everything could change. You could have injuries like the situation they were in this year, throwing Smith Schaver in game one of the situation going in. I mean, everything could change. You could have injuries like the, geez, the situation they were in this year throwing Smith Schaver in game one of the wild card round. Like if injuries hit at the right time, Charlie Morton's pitching that situation

in 2025, right? Like something like that could, could happen as well. I like Pavetta though, because he's like, he's got some upside and like, you know, maybe your pitching coach thinks he's got a plan that nobody else has used. I think this would be another time to tip the cap to Anthopolis and that front office though for the Ronaldo Lopez plan. I think a few of us might have snickered when they said he's going to start, right? If anything, it's taught me to be more open-minded about the players that signed with clubs that were relievers that they say up front, hey, we're giving this guy a chance.

I think that was the takeaway. Wide range of results like we talked about earlier, but it's worth watching. If they don't wanna go into the luxury tax, they could just shop in the bargain bin and just say, no, our rotation is sale, Schwellenbach, Ronaldo Lopez, guy off the bargain bin and rookie,

until Strider comes back. Yeah, and maybe they develop. That might be what they do. Of Waldrop, Smith Schaver, one of those guys could have a great winter, come back with some stuff that's not there right now. Just needs a slider, dude. Why doesn't he have a slider?

Someone give him a slider, try a cutter or something. I don't know. He's got the pieces except for the most important piece. It's true. Last topic before we most important piece. It's true. Last topic before we go, man. It's a good team still, yeah. Still very good. I think all three of the teams that got bounced are still in pretty good situations heading

into 2025. I think that's the consensus opinion for a lot of folks out there. Maybe there's a few fans that disagree. But last question for you, is this current format we're using for the wild card round? Is it actually good? Is this okay? I mean, we were literally a late rally away from having no baseball tonight and no baseball on Friday

before division series started up on Saturday. Like given that status throughout earlier, where so far the teams that win game one since 2022 have won all of these series, is that good? I don't like the sweeps. Why have three game series if they never go three? There's the option and there's always a balancing devaluing the regular season, devaluing the post season.

Devaluing the post season is if you make it so long that people stop paying attention. I mean, I like basketball and I hate the first round of the basketball playoffs, because it's like two months of playoffs and the first round is a bad team against a good team. I just like, I barely watch it unless it's the Warriors. So, I don't want to make the playoffs so long

that they suck that way. But you do want to value the regular season in terms of giving people advantages Why have bi-weeks and stuff like that? I think if maybe I had my druthers Maybe we could make them five game series and I don't want to take games away from the regular season There's an elephant in the room Spring training is too long The players aren't getting paid in spring training.

It's so long. The people who cover it have to leave and come back because it's so long. If we could take one week out of spring training, I think we could do some interesting things with the postseason. And if you made it better than out of five, I'm hoping that some of that stuff matters.

It does mean a little bit of more buy time and more rest time. So now you get more belly aching about that. Maybe you could have a real tight schedule. Maybe you could have postseason double headers. I mean, that double header between the Mets and Braves was pretty intense. I think if you added postseason doubleheaders to,

it might curtail some of what the Tigers are doing and some of the John Holstapp approaches too. So yeah, like that could be the wrinkle. There are a few ideas. The other one is the KBO format where the team with the better record in the regular season has a one game edge. So the home team wouldn't win one game.

That's not likely to produce more three game series though. Right, I mean, but maybe that gives you. That's more likely to produce more one game series. Maybe that gives you the balance though where you feel better about the weight of the regular season, you give the wild card team an actual chance, not impossible to go into, maybe that's the sweet spot, so I like that suggestion.

But it doesn't help the playoffs that much. No. If that's what people think they need. I got a poll rates and barrels on Twitter so far. It's 6040 Saying yes, the current best three format is good I think if your team that you're rooting for is not involved It's actually just very tense in a good way a lot of drama. I like the four games a day I like that too. So I think it's here to stay for a little longer. I don't know if we can look at these last three seasons and say, well, this is just how it's always gonna be.

I think it could just be kind of a fluky thing that we've seen through these first few seasons of trying this out. But baseball makes changes a lot with stuff like this. We're gonna go on our way out the door. A reminder, get a subscription to the Athletic at theathletic.com slash rates and barrels. $2 a month gets you the door

for all the great playoff coverage that we have. Find Eno on Twitter at EnoSaris. Find me at Derrick and Ryper. Find the pod at rates and barrels. Thanks to our producer, Brian Smith, for putting this episode together. We're back with you with the Division series previews on Friday. Thanks for listening. Smithschaubar just needs a slider, dude.