October 15, 2025 • 50 mins
Hosts Joe Maddon and Tom Verducci are picking their favorite parts of the LCS series we're watching. The Dodgers have become the team that everyone was expecting all season. Tom explains what the Brewers need to change and the tough task they're facing. Joe looks back at his playoff experience and talks about how teams are handling these moments and the players that deliver. Has Tom changed his opinion on who is the MVP in baseball? Plus, some thoughts on a surprise managerial opening in baseball!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
The Book of Joe Podcast is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Welcome back to the Book of Joe podcast. League Championship
Series Edition. We're midway through the two lcs's. We've seen
some great baseball, especially some great pitching. Joe Madden, I'm
Tom Berducci. Of course, I know you're a huge fan
of Diners, right, the famous Third Base Diners. It's a
second home for you. Right, yep, there's of diners too.
(00:38):
But I gotta tell you, when I walk into a
diner and I get that menu, I get a little overwhelmed.
It's like so many good things on there. I never
know what to order right, even at night. I want breakfast,
But is it an omelet? Is it eggs? It can
be intimidating. So what I'm gonna do is hand you
the menu right now as we're talking about the League
Championship Series, I want you to pick out your order here. Like,
(01:00):
what stands out to Joe Madden watching all these innings
of baseball LCS that really caught your eye? What's the
most I don't know, I don't want to say different,
but most interesting thing you've seen watching these games early on?
Speaker 3 (01:13):
Well, the one, I mean the one most interesting moment
was the double play that the Brewers pulled and the
ball off the center field fanser. I mean, the thing
about that play that impressed me as much as anything
was that the Brewer players knew what to do, you know,
they they knew exactly how to react to it. The
throws are outstanding, the ball gets the controls, he he
knows he's a forest play that he runs the third
(01:33):
base doesn't want to even attempt to throw the baseball.
He just knew what was going on. And I love
that because I, you know, watching it, I didn't realize
that the ball at glove fans and back to the
player of the outfielder. I didn't see that. But and
even Chad Fairchild, the third base on part I think
it was third base, he saw it. So there were
so many good things that happened on a baseball stuff
(01:54):
on a baseball level. You never get to see that
oun't even though nobody that is a one timer for
me and probably for everybody else that watched the game often,
so that I thought was an outstanding baseball play on
the part of the Brewers knowing what to do. And
then furthermore, umpire has got a lot of criticism. Really,
Chad did the right thing on I note Chad for
(02:15):
a long time, so I love that. The other part
is when starting pitchers go deep into the games, the
team normally does well. It's normally a good outcome. And
that's the one thing. And I was thinking about this
the other day, and this is off the beaten path
a little bit, but I want to throw it out there.
You know, the minor leagues and how we get our
pitchers to develop and get to the big leagues. I
would like to propose that as a starting pitcher in
(02:36):
the minor leagues, you have to go the third time
through the batting order in order to be able to
be promoted. Almost you have to be able to manifest
and do that and navigate your way through that. I
would insist on my minor league starters being able to
go through the third time through the batting order to
actually see what that feels like and then eventually know
(02:56):
how to do it. Thus, you have starters going deeper
into games, this constant parade of relief pitches. I'm telling you, man,
from a dugout perspective, it's you're lucky. I'm gonna say
you're lucky when it works out that somebody doesn't have
a bad day. You're just lucky. To do that on
a nightly basis for that many innings is really difficult.
It's almost impossible with any kind of consistency. So I
(03:19):
say that play. I love when the starters go deep.
I do think that the bullpen parade is hard to
consider it reliable. And then, of course the home run
is the home run again.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
Now see, I knew you would pick me out a
really nice fluffy omelet Swiss cheese. There's some veggies, some
avocado thrown in there, and then you out ordered me Joe,
because I hadn't thought about that. It's a great point
you bring up the way the initial reaction on what
was a very confusing play by so many people on
a field, especially wearing Brewers uniforms. It was really impressive.
(03:52):
I mean, getting the ball in quickly, that's kind of
a no brainer. But the relay was set up perfectly.
You saw Contraro's not just as you mentioned, running down
the third base and getting the second out, but stretching
to get the force play at the plate, you know,
knowing that it was not attack situation. It was one
of those players, Joe, I gotta admit, there's not many
times I've seen anything like quite like that. And it's like,
after the player is over, you're asking yourself, you kind
(04:13):
of taking the inventory what just happened, right, And it
seemed like the Brewers solved that in real time. So
we know they're one of the smarter teams in baseball,
and they certainly showed it on that one particular play.
Your second point, we definitely need to talk about this,
the bullpening carousel in the postseason. The Dodgers are bringing
us back to I don't know, nineteen sixties Dodgers right
(04:34):
started pitching going deep in the game. I had said, Joe,
going back, I'm saying before the season started, if the
Dodgers had three of their big four healthy, we're talking
about Glasnow, snell Yamamoto, Otani, no one's going to beat them.
They're all four healthy, they're all four throwing great. And
(04:55):
we talked all year about the Brewers and we love
watching them play baseball fundamentally sound, put the ball in play,
don't strike out, run the base as well, catch on defense.
Telling you, Joe, we're seeing this it's all about power.
I hate to say that, but power are on the mound,
power at the plate is going to win out over
little ball. In these small sample sizes of the postseason.
Right now, the Dodgers to me look like the baseball
(05:17):
team everybody said in the offseason that they're too good
for baseball. Now they could be stopped. You know, it's baseball,
nothing certain, But this is the Dodgers at full strength, which, ironically,
and maybe not ironically, maybe they plan it this way,
we haven't seen all year. This is the team that
Dodgers planned for to have in October, and here it is,
and anybody in their way they're running over.
Speaker 3 (05:39):
Well, two things. We'll get back to that. But there's
a spring training game that's breaking out into the playoffs,
right I mean, that's the way they're running the pitching
staffs right now is exactly what you do in the camp,
and that is, you know, you predetermine, you got these
guys coming out, You got your little slots working. Guys
are just pretty pretty much getting they're working at that time.
Obviously they're not now, but it's a spring training game.
(05:59):
It's just constant flow relief pitchers, and I don't think
that does the game justice. I don't. Like I said,
it starts in the minor leagues for me, and I
would insist that my and I would get my starters
and I would stop babying them and I would let
them pitch and throw bigger numbers and get them deeper
into games and know what it feels like. All of
that stuff would be a big part of a minor
(06:20):
league situation. If I had an opportunity to do something
like that, I think that would be number one. Because
you're saying why it is so important right now, and
to buy that stuff is very, very expensive. To nurture
it on your own. I had like Shields and Cobb
and Price, Jeff Neeman, Jeremy Hellison, Kasmer, I had all
these dudes back in the day that were able to
(06:42):
do these kinds of things. I mean, we talked about this,
the raise pitching stuff every spring. My thought to them
was what my request would be a thousand innings among
our starters. And I'm not talking like ten or eleven
or twelve. I'm talking about, you know, five plus maybe
two or three other guys, so that needs to come
back for some team. That would be my starting point
(07:04):
that in defense, learning how to play the game fundament.
That's where would begin. Number two. This might be the
best version of the Dodgers we're seeing, like even compared
to last year, because right now they're doing all this
in Show heyes, not even hot. I mean show, he's
like had some really bad at bats and he's gonna
be fine, of course, but right now he's not contributing.
He's contributing in the way that he's forcing their hands
(07:26):
to move to Mooki when Show's not hot. But you know,
you could totally understand that. But he's even even when
he's not doing well, as presence benefits the rest of
the team. So all those things are in play. This
might be the best version of the Dodgers. They're playing
with so much confidence. And again we've talked about this
Andrew and the boys, they've known this all year. They
(07:48):
at least they felt this was going to be this
way all year. They're slow playing it. They want to
make sure everybody's well healthy at this time of the year.
They knew just they just knew just by watching the
groups and the other teams, we're gonna be fire. We're
gonna get to the playoffs, and at that time we
want to it's like tournament baseball when I played for
the Bolder Collegians in the seventies. You get to the
tournament and Baldy Muscheti, the owner, would start drawing players
(08:10):
from Grand Junction or Liberal Kansas and you turn it
into this all star team and it was hard to beat.
And pretty much the Dodgers pretty much do that. They're Dodgers,
but they're pulling them in from injured lists or you know,
taking care of them or not pushing them too hard
because they can't because they got so much ability both
in the miners in the major leagues that they can
(08:31):
do this and that's works to their benefit.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
A great point, by the way, on show Hey on
being that piece on the chessboard even when he's not
hitting that you have to account for the Dodgers. You're
seeing this are a matchup nightmare. And when you're a
team like the Brewers, it's just hard for them to
keep trying to match up. I mean, give me platoon
neutral pitchers, please, and that absolutely that typically is going
(08:57):
to be your starting pitchers, right, But in this case,
I thought the Brewers about a month ago were lined
up well for the postseason and thinking Peralta Wood Miserowski,
the big three right platoon neutral all guys with great
fastballs who come right after you can take the ball
into the sixth inning, can pitch third time around, no problem.
That hasn't happened. They're short on pitching now. Woodroff got
(09:20):
hurt Misszerowski for whatever reason, lost command, and then the
Brewers got off him a little bit. They never really
restored his confidence and got him back into the zone
enough to trust him as a starting pitching. He's trying
to think, Okay, let's use that one hundred and four
mile an hour fastball is a weapon of the bullpen,
which is fine, but it's fine when you have some
length from your starters, which they don't have. And when
you get pushed Joe, I know, probably brings back some
(09:42):
bad memories for you. You get pushed in the DS
to a five game, knockdown, drag out fight. You can't
go up against a team like the Dodgers of full strength,
and you're seeing that that's playing out. They don't have
enough pitching. They have to keep going to the bullpen
to try to match up against the Dodger lineup. It
can't happen for the Brewers like this This is kind
of their worst scenario that is playing out in front
(10:03):
of them. Murph is up against it, no question about it.
That team is always ready to play. But I think
right now, I don't want to say it's a mismatch,
but the way the Dodgers pitched the first two games,
I think the Brewers haven't really had much of a chance.
I think about this, Joe, this is amazing. Yeah, you
talked about you know, going deep, obviously, Yamamoto the complete game,
Snell going eight. What do you think the percentage of
(10:24):
fastballs is that the Dodgers threw in the first two
games to win the first two games of spectacular pitching
and guys who are throwing in the upper nineties, the
percentage of fastballs by the Dodgers games one and two.
Speaker 3 (10:35):
Less than fifty percent.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
Yeah, a lot less, Okay, It's just amazing. Between Snell's
change up, which has really developed into a great, great pitch,
Yamamoto is split and his curveball and everything else. He's
got a good luck to the Brewers because you still
have to honor upper nineties, but you're seeing, you know,
two thirds secondary stuff with command. It's been impressive. With
(10:58):
the Dodgers have done.
Speaker 3 (10:59):
If you're describing also the very difficult DS that was
the twenty seventeen Cubs against the Nationals Washington went five games,
really as gruesomely wonderful series I've ever participated in, and
we eventually won the fifth game in Washington against a
very good, very good Washington team. And then eventually we
(11:22):
headed to LA and we had an issue on the airplane,
have spend the night on the ground in Albuquerque. Eventually
get to LA the next day, I think around noon.
And this is like we had left after the game
the night before. You're sleeping on the plane, and then
you get there the next day, a little you know,
difference in temperature, a little bit warmer, and then the
boys didn't have to go to the ballpark, but we
(11:42):
did play the next day. I think, you know that
late afternoon game where the sun's ridiculous and you're just
you know, you're buzzed out. Man. It's a really difficult
moment mentally, just because of the severity of the previous series,
the lack of sleep, the lack of rest. I know
your professionals are supposed to get it going, but trust me,
it's not easy. And then that's that's, you know, kind
(12:03):
of what happened. Plus I used wayde Davis like two
plus to win that game, but he was the only
person I thought could get that done at that moment.
So I think it was two and a third that
Wade went in Washington. I think he struck out Harpard
in the game to get us to go to the
NL see US. So you do you expend so much energy?
Sometimes you have to. I mean, there's no other thing
(12:25):
that you're just trying to win tonight's game and advance
and move on. But there is a price to pay sometimes,
and maybe that's what you're talking about here.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
Yeah, MERV talked about very similar Joe not just using
up the pitching, but he called it an emotional series
against the Cubs, and sometimes momentum is great, an emotion
is good, but when it's night after night, it can
take a toll. The other thing Murph mentioned, I mentioned
all the breaking pitches and off speed pitches Los Angeles
threw in those two games. He made it a point
(12:52):
to congratulate or at least acknowledge the job that Smith
did behind the plate. Will Smith one of the better
catchers in the game, and the way he runs that staff.
I thought that was very interesting that Murph would acknowledge
that to say the other pitching was great, but he
gave a lot of credit to the pitch calling of
Will Smith. And I look around these games, Joe and man,
you better have a really good catcher. I know that's obvious.
(13:14):
It was the classic line from Casey Stangel. Of course,
I need a good catcher on the sixty two Mets.
If you don't have a good catcher, there'll be a
lot of pass balls. But you know, Will Smith, You've
got cal Raley to me, runs a game as well
as anybody I've seen since Yadia Molina. You know Alejandro
Kirk one of the best in the business and framing pitches.
Contraras is more of an offensive guy, but he has
really improved behind the plate. Break me through, Joe, you
(13:36):
know your former catcher. You know the importance of catchers,
but especially in the postseason environment when there's so much
attention paid to sequencing and patterns and you're seeing the
same hitters night after night after night. As you get
deeper into his series, the job that these catchers and
the responsibilities that they have.
Speaker 3 (13:53):
I'll tell you one of the yes. And one of
the biggest responsibilities is that just purely the relationship between
them and the pitcher, where there's a high level of
trust going on and the highest call implement or praise
you could ever receive as a catcher. And I felt
this way was when a pitcher would say, I really
love throwing to you. I want to throw to you
because there was other catchers on the team, Guys would
(14:13):
come to you, they want to throw to you. Whenever
they said that, Wow, I mean you knew you were
doing something right. There's that that synergy between the two
of you. It so matters. So if you talk to
all these pictures on these different teams, I would bet
that they talk about how much they love throwing to
Smith or Rawley or Contreras whomever. I think that's number one.
(14:34):
After that, a lot of it has to do with
your ability to retain and ability. This is an area
that I really like analytics, the ability to stick to
the script, because there's sometimes you run into a catcher,
maybe more of a veteran catcher that really, you know,
he wants to get more feeling involved in this. What
am I feeling? One of my And that's one area
where I prefer staying to a script is on How'm
(14:57):
going to pitch to Tom Verducci, because it's pretty much
going to be accurate. And when you go rogue off
the script, that's when you're going to get hurt sometime,
and not to be in the dugout because I knew
the script that would be difficult to deal with. We
had with the Cubs Mike Borzella. We've talked about Borzy's
been on our show. I always talked about another team
got borzelloed after the game because Warsy had this wonderful
(15:19):
method that he incorporated was his own form of analytics
to break down the opposition, and he did it very well,
very methodically, and very accurately, and I know he's still
doing it. So what I'm getting to is that catchers
for the Cubs back then would able to just be
able to peek in and if they needed something off
the cheat sheet from Boresy, it was there. They had
a little sign to tell him, you know, okay, it's
(15:42):
a tough moment, give me some help right here. What
he got and whom would come on in the game,
And of course this doesn't happen every pitch. Because the
catchers pretty they did stay on script, but if they
were just hung up at all, look at Borzy. So
I don't even know if these guys are doing that
at all. I I haven't watched closely enough to see
if there's a little peak in or not. But I
see nothing wrong with that. So again the way analytics
(16:04):
works and how accurate it is regarding this, and that's
why more breaking balls have been thrown. Part of it
is because these pitchers we're talking about have great command
of the breaking ball Snell's change up. They just are
able to throw for a strike when they want to,
or have it start as a strike and become a ball.
And that's the true ability of these guys. So that's
a part in the game where analytics shines. So you
(16:27):
have to have a catch with great retention, and I
think you have to have somebody on the bench I
believe that is really qualified that can give him that
little cheat sheet answer when it's necessary.
Speaker 2 (16:37):
Here's a couple of quick stories for you on cal Raley. Listen.
If I had a vote this year of going back
in September, I was about for the MVP of the ALE,
I would go with Aaron judge because his offensive numbers,
there's a big gap between him and col But Joe.
The more I watched cal Raley play baseball and how
well he plays, he is the ultimate coach's son, and
(16:59):
what he means to this team, I'm starting to think
he's the MVP. I mean it is amazing to watch him.
I mean, really watch him the things that don't show
up in the numbers. A couple of stories. Game one,
you got Bryce Miller out there is on short rest.
First pitch he throws George Springer, hits out for a
home run, walks the next guy, gets it out, walks
(17:20):
the next guy. The building is on fire in Toronto,
which has the best home record in the American League.
The game is about to get away in the first inning.
Cal calls time out and he walks out to the
mound as slow as you've ever seen anybody walk on
the boardwalk of Atlantic City. I mean, he completely just
stopped the game, didn't say a whole lot on the mound,
(17:42):
but took his time, whited so long the umpire had
to come out there and break it up. Six pitches later,
they're back in the dugout. I talked to Pete Woodworth,
who is the pitching coach for the Seattle Mariners, because
I've seen a lot of Mariners games this year and
I've seen Cal do this countless times where he just
controls the game and every time he goes out to
(18:02):
the mount, I mean every time the pitching coach does
not follow him. And Joe, you've seen enough baseball. You
know now that mound visits are capped. You only have
five per game. That a lot of pitching coaches when
they see the catcher go out to the mound, they
want to be part of the meeting. They figured that's
their opportunity to say something to their guy out there,
because you can only have a certain number of visits
(18:23):
and I'm not going to let one pass without having
my say. So Pete Woodworth almost never, and probably the
answer is never goes out there. And I asked him
about that and he said there's a reason for that.
I said, well, it is it. He said, this is
Cal's team, it's his team. He said, I have never
questioned Cal Rawley. In fact, later that game, they brought
in Andrea's Munoz the closer, and Black Guerrero was leading
(18:46):
off the inning, so thinking about the next thing, and
cal went up to Woodworth and he had some ideas
about how to pitch to Guerrero, who's a terrific fastball hitter,
and they wanted to attack him with fastballs up too.
He started to say that to Woodworth and the pitching
coach stopped him and he said, Cal, do what you
think think is right. I'm never going to question you.
And that's what the pitching coach told me. He said,
(19:08):
I will never question cal Rally because he's never made
a bad decision. Maybe it doesn't work out, but he's
always put the work in, always put the thought in
on what the call is, and I trust him. I
mean that smoke volumes to me, Joe that in this game,
everybody wants to get nursed through the game. They put
this game in the hands of cal Rawley and let
him ride. And if you see one of the Mariners'
(19:30):
pitchers shake off cal Rawly in the course of a
game during this series, I'll give you a nickel each
time it happens, and you won't be able to buy
a cup of coffee.
Speaker 3 (19:37):
That's pretty powerful stuff. And then on top of that,
his manager was a pretty good catcher, Danny Wilson, I
saw him play for Minnesota versus University of Arizona and Tucson.
I don't even know what year that was. As a scout,
I watched him in the dugout. Also, having been a
former catcher, he understands what that position is all about,
(19:58):
and then he obviously knows the kind of work that
Rawley puts into it and relationship he has with his pitcher.
So that's kind of a kind of an interesting and
positive dynamic they have going between the pitching coach, the
manager and their potentially MVP catcher. You can't say that
very often whether you have that kind of synergy. Again,
(20:20):
this natural connection among these three men here is so
important because trust, there's the key word to any successful organization.
When you trust one another, when you get to have
open conversations in front of one another, when you don't
look at the door all the time, when that person
somebody else is in the room, just because you may be,
you know, talking about that guy a little bit. These
(20:40):
are the things that I really work against when I'm
in charge of being a manager. So I love all that.
It makes me want them to be even more successful
because that's the way it should be. There's an empowerment
going on right there. There's no control being held over
anybody else.
Speaker 2 (20:55):
Well, let's get back to our diner menu and the
pitching carousel. Something's happened in the ALCS. I can't wait
to talk to Joe about managers decisions. We'll talk about
that right after this on the Book of Joe. Welcome
(21:22):
back to the Book of Joe. I've been on the
Mariners during this run, Joe, and one thing stands out
to me. Managers who are in a hurry to go
to their bullpen are going to lose. Because Dan Wilson,
you mentioned, the Mariners manager, He's going to outstuff you
with his arms. He has more elite options and more
platoon neutral relief options than you do. So by going
(21:43):
to your bullpen early and getting your best picture, your
starting pitcher out of the game, you are going to
lose that against Seattle. And I've seen that time and
time again, whether it was Trek Scoobll coming out after
ninety two or ninety seven pitches. He did it twice
in that series. And that's not a knock on aj
Hinch because that's just who Trek Scooble is. This guy's
(22:04):
never thrown more than one hundred and eight pitches. He
just is a high effort, high energy guy who when
he's done, he's done, and a couple of times both
times actually Seattle took advantage of that. Now we're in
a series with Toronto where John Schneider, the Blue Jays manager,
has done the same thing. He's taken out his best
pitcher in my book, early, because you're not going to
(22:25):
win the back half against Seattle. In this case, it
was Kevin Gosman, it was Trey Y Savage. Let's talk
about the first decision, Joe in the game number one,
because the way the series is playing out, that's still
looming extremely large. Gosman obviously is the race. He's on
full rest. He had retired sixteen consecutive batters in Game one,
(22:47):
and cal Rawley digs out a splitter and hits it
out of the ballpark. He had thrown I think nine
out of ten pitches were splits in his previous two
at bets. He's struck out Raley the previous bet. Cal
Rawly hits a home run off a splitter. It's gonna happen, right,
The dude's got sixty two. I couldn't call it really
a mistake. You know, it wasn't as far down as
he wanted. But all right, solo home run, that's still
(23:09):
your race on the mound. Then he walks Julio Rodriguez
and he's out of the game. Now keep this in mind, Joe,
He's taken out of the game because at some point
early on, John Schneider had his bullpen up. I mean,
to go to your bullpen that quickly, you had to
have somebody ready. He's anticipating trouble. And here we are again,
third time around. And that's what really to me, really
(23:31):
informed this decision. I've got to stick with Gosman. He's
at seventy six pitches. It's the middle of the lineup.
So what does he do. He brings in little his
left handed specialists, right, and Polanco turns around. I don't
know how you feel about Polanco, Joe, but right now
he's dangerous both sides of the plate. MVP, there's a
wild pitch, and now there's a runner on second base,
(23:55):
and first base is open, and your MVP, Polongo is
in the box. They pitched to him. He gets a
base hit RBI. I asked Snyder why not walk him there,
and he talked about, well, you know, in this situation,
you trust the picture and the catcher to navigate. It's
a pitch a round situation where you either get swing
a miss on the breaking ball or it's ball four. No,
(24:17):
that's where cal Rawlely goes out to the mound. That's
where you don't leave it up to the players to
assume they're going to do the right thing. I'm sorry
that the way that inning unfolded, it was a mistake
upon mistake. I don't know how you saw it, if
you saw it playing out, Joe, but man, that just
worked completely in the favor of Seattle. You took out
your best starting pitcher, which they really enjoyed. You pitched
(24:40):
the Blanco with a base open with a lefty.
Speaker 3 (24:42):
Yeah. Personal with Gosman. When I saw they were doing that,
I looked immediately, I want to know how many pitches
is this guy thrown? Because I'm with you, man, I'm
a big fan of Gosman, and he is their guy.
He was on full rest all the above and beyond
all of that. It's not an elimination game. I mean,
if it was like the last game of a series,
we're going home. I maybe a little bit more sympathetic
(25:05):
to the whole thing, but it wasn't. And again, Gosman,
is that good and like you said, he retired so
many in a row. Pretty good hitter hits a split
down out and then here comes the walk. You might
have just been a little bit annoyed by that, and
then he's probably ready to settle back down. So I
was absolutely surprised by that. Pitching around that's man, Today's
game pitching around is that's kind of a lost art.
(25:27):
I don't really trust guys to do that.
Speaker 2 (25:29):
You let me, Joe, let me, let me put you
in the doug out then, because you've got Nailor Josh
Naylor is a left handed hitter on deck. You've got
your left handed specialist in the game. Would you just
put him on intentionally?
Speaker 3 (25:40):
I'm thinking about it as you're talking about it deck. Okay,
two outs, yes, yeah, two ounces is fine? Yes, I did, Yes,
more than likely I would have. Here's the point with that.
Believe it or not, the game starts going fast. Okay,
it does. It just does. I would bet that did
not did not even enter John Schneider's mind at that point.
I'm betting because of.
Speaker 2 (26:01):
The wild pitch, you know, as you mentioned, and it
changed the whole DYNA.
Speaker 3 (26:05):
So that's why you have to be ahead of all
of this constantly. Nobody spoke up and said, hey, what
do you think about walking him right here? Which is
really also an important you would you want a bench coach.
I don't want everybody talking to me, but if the
one guy that does talk to me, I'm good if
he says something like that to me, because you do
get lost in maybe relief pitching and what just had happened,
(26:27):
and you want to stay ahead, but sometimes you don't.
I'm betting that got lost in the shuffle a little bit.
That's my opinion. And so to say you're going to
pitch around, I'm not into it. I would just if
you're gonna picture on if that's your thought, I'm walking
a guy. That's a clear indicator to just walk him.
Just told up the four fingers put him on base.
If you had said something like I really thought he
could have got this guy. I liked the left hander
(26:50):
stuff against Polonko. We've talked about this in pregame meetings.
I really like this matchup a lot different world. But
to talk about pitching around. I'm not into that. I've
had too many times where pretty good pictures today's game
where if you can't command your fastball, I don't like
the idea of pitching around. So if the guy is
(27:10):
truly a command kind of dude, he knows how to
you know, put the ball down, put the ball in
the dirt, get the chase different. But under the circumstances,
what I just heard, what you just said, is that
the pitching around, No, that wasn't that. That's not really
what was going on. I think it got a little
bit too quick. And if you wanted to pitch around,
just go ahead and walk them.
Speaker 2 (27:30):
Yeah, good stuff there, and let's go now the game too,
because there became a similar crisis point for John Schneider.
He's got his kid out there on the mound. He's
been mister wonderful, Tredy Savage, unhittable, split the high release point,
you know, the whole drill. But wasn't quite the same
in Game two as we've seen him in a past,
certainly not against the Yankees where he allowed no hits.
(27:51):
So we get to the fifth inning and the game
is tied after a three run homer, he gave up
early that the Jays get back in the game. It's
three to three in the fifth and the inning starts
with Randy Rosa hitting a ground ball infield. Hit Jimenez
tries to make a play. He probably shouldn't make, throws
it away. He's on second base. Now at that point,
(28:11):
Schneider challenged that maybe the ball should have not advanced
the runner because it hit Gino Suarez, who's hit sitting
on the top step of the dugout. But he was
out of play. So the runner goes to second. Now
he's got a base open and cal Raley is in
the box. Okay, here's the situation, Joe. Fifth inning, there
is nobody out, the game is tight. It's the fifth inning.
(28:34):
He walks cal Raley. Now this is the guy I
gotta defend. Schneider here, he's just watched Raleigh absolutely just
hammer his team. I mean, he's got like eight home
runs in fourteen games in that ballpark in his career,
He's got the highest lugging percentage in the history of
Rogers Center. He has seen way too much at cal Raley.
He puts him on base with an intentional walk. It's
(28:57):
only the fourth time in postseason history. Somebody who was
intentionally walked with no outs early is the fifth inning? Crazy, right,
You're giving them another run, another runner with nobody out,
and then he makes a pitching change and he takes
out you Savage, And later on he would say that
he thought his velocity was dipping a little bit, just
(29:18):
wasn't the same pitcher. So he brings in Louis Varland.
He gets Julio Rodriguez, who can't catch up to his heater,
and then there's mister MVP again, Polanco, who takes some yard,
three run homer ballgame. I wasn't a fan of the
walk to cal Raley. I gotta be honest with you, Joe.
I don't want to give the other team to run
it with nobody out. Basically, what you're saying is, I
(29:38):
don't trust my guys anymore to keep cal Rally in
the ballpark. You're not setting up a double play. Varlin's
not that kind of a picture. Nobody out. Man That
is risky, and it blew up on him. And I
give credit to Seattle because what Polanco is doing is
just amazing. You know, he's hitting behind cal Raley and
Julio Rodriguez, who are two franchise players. And here's a
guy who was on the free agent market last year
(30:00):
and settled for a one year, seven point seven five
million dollar deal. He's become Babe Ruth this October. So
start with that. Given the hit or credit, but walk
me through the thinking there, Joe. If you're in the
dugout there and you've got cal rally up there with
nobody out in a tie game and the fifth inning
in first base open.
Speaker 3 (30:16):
Yeah, what was run around second base? Also is that
we're saying on the second base Yeah? Yeah, well, gosh,
this is something that.
Speaker 2 (30:23):
I mean, it's trouble either way, I get it right.
Speaker 3 (30:25):
No, Yeah, this would be this possibly would be the
example of if you had somebody out there that you
did like command wise, this is the time to try
to get him the chase out of the zone. If
in fact, and you savage with that whatever that is,
split fork, whatever, that would be the pitch to do
it with. I believe. On the other hand, the guy's
been burnt. He's burned him so bad. And this is
(30:47):
probably a conversation that occurred before the game. You know, again,
don't let Brolly beat us. Well, here it is it's
like staring us in the face. And then there's also
the potential for the double play following Old Rodriguez runs well,
but it's nevertheless, if I put first and second, I
might get two outs with one. All these thoughts are
going through your head. I know the guy that came.
Speaker 2 (31:07):
In Verlin, You say, yeah, Louis Varland came in Arland Varl.
Speaker 3 (31:11):
He got good arm. Man, that kid's got a good
arm and he got the punchy, so that all it
started looking good at that point. Let me just go
back to your savage. The first inning really put pretty
much put that guy behind the eight ball because and
I said, I was text you when it happened. That's
a perfect example for the automatic ball strike system right there,
automated because he struck that kid out. And I really believe,
(31:32):
I know, you got to make a better pitch coming
up and this and that whatever, whatever, But I really
the bottom of heart believe if that pitch had been
called accurately, here's a lot.
Speaker 2 (31:41):
Of two strike pitch too.
Speaker 4 (31:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (31:44):
Yeah, was walking back to the dugout.
Speaker 3 (31:48):
Exactly that that set everything up. He eventually gets on
base and all of a sudden, hell breaks loose. Home
run happens. But that I mean, see, I look at
things like that, games could be won or lost. I
swear with the first hitter in the first inning, I've
seen it happen, and I make not of it during
a game, and it's it's not impossible. It's not impossible.
(32:08):
You'd argue with me all you want, whoever wants to argue,
but I've seen it, and you just saw it happen
right there. That game was lost in the first inning
on that pitch. That's what I saw.
Speaker 2 (32:17):
So hey, let me stop you there again. Back to
your point. I texted you back that yes, I agree
with you that strike strike three, you got one out.
Place is still joyful, right, But Doug ednings. You know
he missed the call. There's no question about it. That
was a slider from you, Savage. And he has such
crazy movement on his pitches, his slider, And this is
(32:38):
what I was told after the Mariners had their pitters
meeting before the game. Treat his slider like a left
hander's curveball. That's the way it breaks. It has screwball
action to it. And John Schnader told me a really
interesting story that in one of you Savage's starts. The
backup catcher goes out to warm up the pitcher as
Kirk is getting the gear on Tyler Heyneman, and Heineman
says to the manager, make sure you stay on his
(33:01):
slider because it's got so outlier of movement that's sometimes
an umpire, not just a hitter, will give up on
that pitch. And that pitch came back into the strike someone,
which you're not expecting with a breaking ball like that.
So yeah, I'm with you. That definitely to me, even
though it was the first batter of the game, that
could have been a challenge next year in the abs.
(33:22):
I know you only have two, but that's a very
interesting point you made, Joe about whether that would be
a challenge or not next year or not, because maybe
it did change that inning, So go ahead.
Speaker 3 (33:30):
I think it did because then the kid like you, Savage,
he gets a punchy right there. He's a different dude
in the rest of that first inning, but he gets
a walk, and I have to believe after that pitch
was called a ball. It wasn't a borderline strike, it
was an obvious strike. It may have done something to
him psychologically. I'm just saying he's a tough kid. He's
from Potsdown, Pennsylvania, He's got to be tough. But I
(33:54):
just saw something there, and I'm the only point I'm
making is if you're ambivalent about the ABS system, there's
a perfect example of how it could work and benefit
quickly expedition and move the game on and possibly really
turn of events a different team cost we could have
won that night. And I know this first thing. I
know it's one call, but I'm just telling you, been there,
(34:14):
done that before. So that and then a lot of
these pitching changes. Gosman and your Savage almost seem predetermined
to me. It sounds like they have a very strong
pregame pre series meetings with strong opinions on how to
do this. That's what I'm seeing. You know, the bullpen wars. God,
it's so hard to win that when you don't get
depth out of your starting pitching. And they have two
guys there that I would believe going into it that
(34:38):
I would expect some depth out of both of those guys,
Gosman and the Savage, because gosh, they're good. They're really good,
and they were arrested and they were well and rock
and roll here we go. So that to me is
kind of where it got away, because once you start
expending that kind of relief pitching, what happens is then
you start spending relief pitching and bad moments. And I
hate that. I hate when I have to expend a
(34:59):
good relief pitching and bad moments and then I know
it's they get a day rest, but there's still expenditures
made there, and that always bothered me too. So, yeah,
it's starting pitching, man. Nurture it, teach you how to
go the third time through the batting order. Trust it. However,
in an elimination game, I would be more a little
bit more aggressive.
Speaker 2 (35:18):
Yeah, I'm with you one hundred percent, Joe and your
general theory there on that, and you know, for what
it's worth, I did talk to somebody on the Toronto
side about the first the game one decision with Gosman,
and the answer was pretty much exactly what you said that, Hey,
it's postseason baseball. It's third time around, we have arrested bullpen.
It's almost like a manager now is expected to run
(35:38):
the game that way because that's how it's done so
often now, and I think especially in a seven game series,
I'm with you, I'd be less inclined to start that
bullpen carousel so early in a longer series, especially again
with my ace fully rested on the mound, you know.
So to me, it's uh, you have to manage these
games a little bit differently. I get it, but getting
(35:59):
the bullpens early, I mean maybe they're also in bold
in a little bit, Joe by the fact that they
want that game in the York by using eight relief
pitchers and they all pitched well, which was like the
planetary alignment of the ages or that happened, because as
we know, the more pitchers you bring in, more likely
is that one of them just does not have it
that day.
Speaker 3 (36:17):
Dude, it's uncomfortable. I'm telling you all these best laid plans,
and in today's game with the three batter minimum, to me,
makes it more difficult because there's going to be one
of those three hitters you don't like without getting to
the third out of the inning. That rule change bothered
me as much as any eliminated the Randy Cholates of
the world, the left handed specialists primarily there even could
have been at the Chad Bradford Matt Chad with the
(36:39):
right handed specialist stuff, you know, Chad Walls. I mean,
all these guys that were really good, maybe in a
smaller sample size and in and out burger kind of
a thing which I loved. So yeah, it's different. You
just kind of alluded to it like this is what
these managers know now. I mean, this is a lot
of them never really managed through stud starting pitchers, you know,
(37:00):
going six plus innings often and encouraging them to do
so and having to be part of the landscape. It's
not a lot of the guys managing now. There's a
lot of that never really went through a minor league
situation to develop young pitching, to see it pitch more
than six innings and throw maybe hundred and ten pitches,
which is no big deal. Really. They've made it a
big deal, but it's not. So if you've never never
(37:23):
been through this, you don't quite understand it. And of
course they're going to follow the lead of what, you know,
kind of what they're been told to do. And I
think that's a lot of a lot of the bullpen
worrying in games today is the you know, the brainschild
the front offices and analytical departments, and that's that's it.
The guys that fight against it have done it differently
in the past because they've actually, you know, managed games
(37:43):
where there wasn't as much consideration before the game, which
you can or cannot do well.
Speaker 2 (37:49):
I can tell you I'm really impressed with the pitching
culture of the Seattle Mariners. They have great analytics department
when it comes to pitch shaping and knowing you know
what stuff to use. It's a great combination of that
and feel. They do the old school things really well.
They led the American League in strike percentage, They led
the American League in first pitch strike percentage. They led
(38:09):
the American League in throwing fastballs. They led the American
League and most pitches thrown with count leverage. Their mantra
is count is king. They go at you control the
bat for the first pitch and then go outside the zone.
They have a bunch of athletic elite movers on the mound.
When you hear that term movers, that means they're athletic,
and the way that they get down the mound they're not.
(38:31):
You know, these highly mechanized, high effort type deliveries, so
they can command the baseball that way and they do.
They have stuff plus command, and I'm just really impressed,
Joe with the philosophy of the Mariners, the way that
it works and the way they've all bought in and
it all again is in the hands of cal Rawley
once the game starts. But they went to Toronto with
(38:52):
two pitchers on short rests and they won both games.
And you know, they're now what five and two of
the postseason, and their best pitcher, Brian Wu, hasn't even
thrown a baseball yet. What do you see from the
Seattle staff.
Speaker 3 (39:04):
Well, you're absolutely I mean, those are really impressive numbers
that that is how you want as you run a
minor league system and you're nurturing your guys coming up.
Those are the tenants that you want to put in place,
no question. For us, a big part of it was
to dominate the one one count. When you could dominate
one to one, you really the difference for a hitter
(39:24):
between two and one and one and two count is
incredibly different. And it just first pitch, strike one, aggressive,
go after these guys. You're going to give up some
like well struck balls. You're going to do that. Remember
James Shields, we're playing I think it was Detroit, and
he gave up four points in the first inning throwing
his fastball, and they're hitting it a little bit, and
he came in. I said, listen, please don't stop doing that.
(39:46):
Just throw it in a better spot. You know, they
were just bad. They were badly located pitches, and they
were getting a little bit. But the fastball is still
going to be the best pitch in baseball. I believe
a well located strike commanded fastball is the best pitch.
Number two for me would be the change up. I
love that back and forth with the whole thing. Number
three for me is a curveball, and then number four
would be a slider cutter kind of a thing. And
(40:08):
if you are able to throw and command and your
arm could withstand a splitter a forkball. There we go.
But I would start with these basic parts of pitching society.
You your fastball, your change up, your curveball. Not I
love a curveball. A misconception there is that like you
throw it to writing's. I love opposite side hooks, where
(40:29):
you go for the back foot of the hitter, like
right curve on a left hand hit, or vice versa.
So they do all these things. That's my I guess
what I'm driving it. They do all these things. They
are fun to watch. Mover is a nice word. They
are very athletic, they're smooth, they're strike throwers, they're assertive,
they don't back down. They take charge of the moment.
And then, like you said before, perfectly they have the
(40:50):
right catcher to do it with.
Speaker 2 (40:51):
You've brought up a pitch, Joe, that we need to
talk about. We'll do that right after this break. The cutter.
Do you like it? Do you hate it? Let's talk
about the cutter after this quick break.
Speaker 4 (41:01):
On the Book of Joe.
Speaker 2 (41:15):
Welcome back to the Book of Joe.
Speaker 3 (41:16):
Joe.
Speaker 2 (41:17):
When you mentioned the cutter, it made me think of
the Selo Mariners. These Clo Mariners were twenty seventh in
the major leagues and cutters thrown. They basically have thrown
none in the postseason. Other than a couple of guys
who don't pitch in high leverage situations, Caleb Ferguson and Vargas,
there's only two guys that throw cutters. I'm not a
huge fan of the cutter. I gotta be honest with you.
(41:37):
It's not a swing and mispitch. So you're trying to
get weak contact, move the ball off the barrel. I
get it a lot of times. It's just a foul ball,
and it's gonna make you throw another pitch. It does
not put hitters away. A lot of times you fall
in love with it. It's gonna take away from the quality
and velocity of your fastball. And it's interesting to me
that the Mariners we just talked about their pitching culture,
they are not in a rush to be handing cutters
(41:59):
to their pitchers. Change speeds. Sure, absolutely that in between
pitch the cutter, which hitters hit against, not a swing
a mispitch. Interesting to me that the Seattle Mariners are
not in love with that pitch the way a lot
of teams are.
Speaker 3 (42:13):
Amen, Ellelujah. Cutter is a bad fastball. Now if you
have if you're Marianna Rivera and you have this chainsaw,
this buzzsaw completely different. I like for me the cutter.
I like it to the opposite side hitter also, and
I like it elevated. If you could elevate in with
your cutter to the opposite side hitter, that's really the
(42:34):
pitch that's going to get on his hands and you're
going to get to the weak part of the bat.
To me, the cutter's designed. It should be designed to
get to the weak part of the bat's that's it.
Right on right cutter, left on left. Cutter goes to
the fat part of the bat. I don't like it.
And it's a bad fastball, meaning it's not thrown with
the same velocity as your normal fastball. So those are
those are my opinions. If you need a break the
(42:55):
ball to throw for a strike and you can't manipulate
the curveball or even a decent slider, that's when you
have to go to something like a cutter to give
a guy something else. That's something that moves a little
bit in a fastball count to get the hitter off
the dead fastball. So never been a fan. It's a
bad fastball. It should be elevated, elevated in opposite side.
(43:15):
For me, if you can't throw a break and ball
any kind, then maybe have to do it because fastball
for a strike in a fastball count, it maybe just
takes it off the sweet spot of the bat just
by moving a little bit, but it should always be
thrown for the weak part of the bat.
Speaker 2 (43:31):
Interesting too, that both the Dodgers and the Mariners who
are out in front and there. Lcs's don't throw many
cutters at all. Dog hate only thirty eight cutters. The
Mariners don't thrown only thirty four the entire postseason. Talking
about less than a handful of game.
Speaker 3 (43:46):
Bad fastball, I call it a bad fastball. I mean,
David Price really got into it, James Shields got into it.
My problem with that also is when you're throwing that pitch,
when you want to put that in your reperts well,
and we talked about schemes earlier in here, although he
did pretty well again, but whenever you're trying to include
a pitch into your mix, you have to make room
for it. So you're gonna you're gonna not throw something
(44:06):
you're really good at for a pitch that's not nearly
as good. So again, if there's a necessity to do
something differently, to add something based on results, based on
some things you can't manipulate the ball, your army, you wrist,
whatever cannot do, then that's an alternative. But I don't
like to put another pitch in the guy's mix who's
pretty good, because then he's got to fit it in.
(44:28):
Sometimes so normally something like this to me is based
on need and not to try to be creative to
add to a great James Shield's change up in his curveball.
I love this curveball. I used to ask them to
ask him please throw it more often and again, especially
against lefties. But the guys want to throw this cutter.
It kind of became the pitch dejure I think, like
(44:50):
between twenty ten and twenty twenty kind of. And I'm
very happy to hear that it's going away.
Speaker 2 (44:54):
Last thing, Joe before we get out of here, will
somethingly get to your thought of the day coming up?
But a lot of managerial news. I mean, it's what
eight or nine openings around the game. Things I want
to get your take on here. One the possibility that
Albert Poolhols could be the next manager of the Angels,
and also that Mike Shilt stepped down as Padre's manager.
(45:15):
You know, Mike's the young man in his late fifties.
That is a great job, talented team that spends money
in a baseball crazy market. Hopefully everything is okay with
Mike as far as what's going on away from the field.
It's a personal decision, but that one really struck me
as surprising. Didn't see that one coming. As I said,
it's one of the better jobs in baseball, and Mike's
(45:37):
shilt is a good baseball guy walked away from it,
which you don't see happen a lot. So I know
there's a lot of openings. We're not going to go
through them all, but those two in particular, Joe really
jumped out at me. So your quick thoughts on those.
Speaker 3 (45:47):
Yeah, Shilty's a lifer. I mean, that's that's the part
of it that I was concerned about too. I heard
about it but yesterday, the day before, and I send
him a text. I haven't heard back from him yet.
I don't even know if I have the right number
or not. You may have changed it since then. Mazes
is one to text me back. But I like the
guy a lot. Worked against it, and we had a
lot of great conversations that did an event Saint Louis
that we had an opportunity to visit with also, But
(46:09):
we're talking about a lifer. It is not like just
a passing fancy with this guy. This guy is baseball.
You know, that's who he is. So that that was
part of my concern and That's why I reached out
just make sure he's cool, and offered the opportunity to
give me a blast if he wanted to. It is
a grind all the time, but this guy is a
b is baseball. That's That's who Shilty is. On the
(46:30):
other side with Albert. Thing that I liked that Albert
did do is I like the fact that he did
go and managing winter ball. I really appreciate that because
a lot of times guys don't even do something like that.
And I don't understand that because I done this for
a while and I could never even imagine walking to
a big league dugout as a team's manager without ever
having understood how to run a game with what goes
(46:53):
into at the nuance of it. Whatever you could, you
could break it all down, all different areas, fast areas.
So at least he did that. The thing about Albert,
if in fact he were to get the job, you're
going to see a strong, I think heavy Saint Loui influence. There.
Had a lot of good conversation with him when he
first got when I first got to the Angels, very sharp,
well thought out baseball mind. He is. He's got strong opinions,
(47:13):
and I think a lot of it's based on working
with Tony LaRussa and of course sending in the Cardinal organization.
They were you know, they're gritty, they're tough guys over there, man,
and you had to come to play. They weren't going
to give you anything how to take it. So I
think he'll bring that kind of an attitude if in
fact he does get the job. But more than anything,
I like the fact that he at least made the
attempt to go out and manage first. I do believe
(47:35):
that in the organization in the future that's wanting to
give guys this opportunity, try to talk to them into
or ask them to make them go. I left to
see them scout an area for one draft at least,
and I love to see them go do one half
season of rookie ball to see what that feels like,
to get your feet on the ground, cut your teeth
a little bit, and understand everything that goes into this.
(47:56):
To me, those are still the best training grounds that
would be scouting rookie ball. And love to send him
to an instructional league, but I don't even know what
we do with that anymore.
Speaker 2 (48:04):
It's a great point. It reminds me of Dusty Baker
did the same thing, went to go managing winter ball.
Knew we wanted to manage have been a really good
hitting coach. But I love when those guys take the
initiative and do something, and players of that caliber, like
an Albert, Let's face it, they don't have to do it.
He could get a job without doing it. But I
love the fact that he did do it. So that
brings us to our ninth inning here, Joe, there's no
(48:25):
question you got the ball in your hands. What do
you got for us today to take us home on
the book of Joe.
Speaker 3 (48:31):
Well, this came with the Dodgers in mind, you know,
just thinking about the playoffs in general and what we're
seeing covered that today. But the thing that stands out
to me is how they have flipped their switch. We
talked about that the Jimmy Edmund switched. They got one.
The whole team has one. I think they've been plotting
and planning for this, you know, this kind of run
at the end, they expected it to happen, and it
(48:51):
is just based on what I want to get to
in a moment. So the Dodgers were the motivation for
me doing this. So I just was researching some things
and came to Benny Franklin. How about that? But his
quote is an investment in knowledge pays the best interest,
and I wanted to include an investment in talent pays
the best interest. I think they're almost synonymous. They're almost
(49:13):
synonymous terms right now, right, I mean the way baseball?
Yeah right, I mean, so information we've talked about this
where analytics is really powerful in the acquisitional process. It
might be the most superstar element of analytics to me
is to find and bring it to the fold the
right people. So an investment in knowledge slash talent pays
(49:33):
the best interest, and the Dodgers are demonstrating that right now.
Speaker 2 (49:37):
Great stuff, Joe. Well, the games have been great, the
ratings have been great. Good, I mean, really, this has
been a spectacular postseason in Major League Baseball. We're guaranteed
to have at least one team in the World Series
who hasn't been there in a lifetime, literally, So look
forward to what's ahead and we'll get right back to
it on the Book of Joe next time.
Speaker 3 (49:56):
Thanks Joe, Thank you, Tommy and Joy Seattle.
Speaker 1 (50:06):
The Book of Joe podcast is a production of iHeartRadio.
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your podcasts.
The Book of Joe Podcast is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Welcome back to the Book of Joe podcast. League Championship
Series Edition. We're midway through the two lcs's. We've seen
some great baseball, especially some great pitching. Joe Madden, I'm
Tom Berducci. Of course, I know you're a huge fan
of Diners, right, the famous Third Base Diners. It's a
second home for you. Right, yep, there's of diners too.
(00:38):
But I gotta tell you, when I walk into a
diner and I get that menu, I get a little overwhelmed.
It's like so many good things on there. I never
know what to order right, even at night. I want breakfast,
But is it an omelet? Is it eggs? It can
be intimidating. So what I'm gonna do is hand you
the menu right now as we're talking about the League
Championship Series, I want you to pick out your order here. Like,
(01:00):
what stands out to Joe Madden watching all these innings
of baseball LCS that really caught your eye? What's the
most I don't know, I don't want to say different,
but most interesting thing you've seen watching these games early on?
Speaker 3 (01:13):
Well, the one, I mean the one most interesting moment
was the double play that the Brewers pulled and the
ball off the center field fanser. I mean, the thing
about that play that impressed me as much as anything
was that the Brewer players knew what to do, you know,
they they knew exactly how to react to it. The
throws are outstanding, the ball gets the controls, he he
knows he's a forest play that he runs the third
(01:33):
base doesn't want to even attempt to throw the baseball.
He just knew what was going on. And I love
that because I, you know, watching it, I didn't realize
that the ball at glove fans and back to the
player of the outfielder. I didn't see that. But and
even Chad Fairchild, the third base on part I think
it was third base, he saw it. So there were
so many good things that happened on a baseball stuff
(01:54):
on a baseball level. You never get to see that
oun't even though nobody that is a one timer for
me and probably for everybody else that watched the game often,
so that I thought was an outstanding baseball play on
the part of the Brewers knowing what to do. And
then furthermore, umpire has got a lot of criticism. Really,
Chad did the right thing on I note Chad for
(02:15):
a long time, so I love that. The other part
is when starting pitchers go deep into the games, the
team normally does well. It's normally a good outcome. And
that's the one thing. And I was thinking about this
the other day, and this is off the beaten path
a little bit, but I want to throw it out there.
You know, the minor leagues and how we get our
pitchers to develop and get to the big leagues. I
would like to propose that as a starting pitcher in
(02:36):
the minor leagues, you have to go the third time
through the batting order in order to be able to
be promoted. Almost you have to be able to manifest
and do that and navigate your way through that. I
would insist on my minor league starters being able to
go through the third time through the batting order to
actually see what that feels like and then eventually know
(02:56):
how to do it. Thus, you have starters going deeper
into games, this constant parade of relief pitches. I'm telling you, man,
from a dugout perspective, it's you're lucky. I'm gonna say
you're lucky when it works out that somebody doesn't have
a bad day. You're just lucky. To do that on
a nightly basis for that many innings is really difficult.
It's almost impossible with any kind of consistency. So I
(03:19):
say that play. I love when the starters go deep.
I do think that the bullpen parade is hard to
consider it reliable. And then, of course the home run
is the home run again.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
Now see, I knew you would pick me out a
really nice fluffy omelet Swiss cheese. There's some veggies, some
avocado thrown in there, and then you out ordered me Joe,
because I hadn't thought about that. It's a great point
you bring up the way the initial reaction on what
was a very confusing play by so many people on
a field, especially wearing Brewers uniforms. It was really impressive.
(03:52):
I mean, getting the ball in quickly, that's kind of
a no brainer. But the relay was set up perfectly.
You saw Contraro's not just as you mentioned, running down
the third base and getting the second out, but stretching
to get the force play at the plate, you know,
knowing that it was not attack situation. It was one
of those players, Joe, I gotta admit, there's not many
times I've seen anything like quite like that. And it's like,
after the player is over, you're asking yourself, you kind
(04:13):
of taking the inventory what just happened, right, And it
seemed like the Brewers solved that in real time. So
we know they're one of the smarter teams in baseball,
and they certainly showed it on that one particular play.
Your second point, we definitely need to talk about this,
the bullpening carousel in the postseason. The Dodgers are bringing
us back to I don't know, nineteen sixties Dodgers right
(04:34):
started pitching going deep in the game. I had said, Joe,
going back, I'm saying before the season started, if the
Dodgers had three of their big four healthy, we're talking
about Glasnow, snell Yamamoto, Otani, no one's going to beat them.
They're all four healthy, they're all four throwing great. And
(04:55):
we talked all year about the Brewers and we love
watching them play baseball fundamentally sound, put the ball in play,
don't strike out, run the base as well, catch on defense.
Telling you, Joe, we're seeing this it's all about power.
I hate to say that, but power are on the mound,
power at the plate is going to win out over
little ball. In these small sample sizes of the postseason.
Right now, the Dodgers to me look like the baseball
(05:17):
team everybody said in the offseason that they're too good
for baseball. Now they could be stopped. You know, it's baseball,
nothing certain, But this is the Dodgers at full strength, which, ironically,
and maybe not ironically, maybe they plan it this way,
we haven't seen all year. This is the team that
Dodgers planned for to have in October, and here it is,
and anybody in their way they're running over.
Speaker 3 (05:39):
Well, two things. We'll get back to that. But there's
a spring training game that's breaking out into the playoffs,
right I mean, that's the way they're running the pitching
staffs right now is exactly what you do in the camp,
and that is, you know, you predetermine, you got these
guys coming out, You got your little slots working. Guys
are just pretty pretty much getting they're working at that time.
Obviously they're not now, but it's a spring training game.
(05:59):
It's just constant flow relief pitchers, and I don't think
that does the game justice. I don't. Like I said,
it starts in the minor leagues for me, and I
would insist that my and I would get my starters
and I would stop babying them and I would let
them pitch and throw bigger numbers and get them deeper
into games and know what it feels like. All of
that stuff would be a big part of a minor
(06:20):
league situation. If I had an opportunity to do something
like that, I think that would be number one. Because
you're saying why it is so important right now, and
to buy that stuff is very, very expensive. To nurture
it on your own. I had like Shields and Cobb
and Price, Jeff Neeman, Jeremy Hellison, Kasmer, I had all
these dudes back in the day that were able to
(06:42):
do these kinds of things. I mean, we talked about this,
the raise pitching stuff every spring. My thought to them
was what my request would be a thousand innings among
our starters. And I'm not talking like ten or eleven
or twelve. I'm talking about, you know, five plus maybe
two or three other guys, so that needs to come
back for some team. That would be my starting point
(07:04):
that in defense, learning how to play the game fundament.
That's where would begin. Number two. This might be the
best version of the Dodgers we're seeing, like even compared
to last year, because right now they're doing all this
in Show heyes, not even hot. I mean show, he's
like had some really bad at bats and he's gonna
be fine, of course, but right now he's not contributing.
He's contributing in the way that he's forcing their hands
(07:26):
to move to Mooki when Show's not hot. But you know,
you could totally understand that. But he's even even when
he's not doing well, as presence benefits the rest of
the team. So all those things are in play. This
might be the best version of the Dodgers. They're playing
with so much confidence. And again we've talked about this
Andrew and the boys, they've known this all year. They
(07:48):
at least they felt this was going to be this
way all year. They're slow playing it. They want to
make sure everybody's well healthy at this time of the year.
They knew just they just knew just by watching the
groups and the other teams, we're gonna be fire. We're
gonna get to the playoffs, and at that time we
want to it's like tournament baseball when I played for
the Bolder Collegians in the seventies. You get to the
tournament and Baldy Muscheti, the owner, would start drawing players
(08:10):
from Grand Junction or Liberal Kansas and you turn it
into this all star team and it was hard to beat.
And pretty much the Dodgers pretty much do that. They're Dodgers,
but they're pulling them in from injured lists or you know,
taking care of them or not pushing them too hard
because they can't because they got so much ability both
in the miners in the major leagues that they can
(08:31):
do this and that's works to their benefit.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
A great point, by the way, on show Hey on
being that piece on the chessboard even when he's not
hitting that you have to account for the Dodgers. You're
seeing this are a matchup nightmare. And when you're a
team like the Brewers, it's just hard for them to
keep trying to match up. I mean, give me platoon
neutral pitchers, please, and that absolutely that typically is going
(08:57):
to be your starting pitchers, right, But in this case,
I thought the Brewers about a month ago were lined
up well for the postseason and thinking Peralta Wood Miserowski,
the big three right platoon neutral all guys with great
fastballs who come right after you can take the ball
into the sixth inning, can pitch third time around, no problem.
That hasn't happened. They're short on pitching now. Woodroff got
(09:20):
hurt Misszerowski for whatever reason, lost command, and then the
Brewers got off him a little bit. They never really
restored his confidence and got him back into the zone
enough to trust him as a starting pitching. He's trying
to think, Okay, let's use that one hundred and four
mile an hour fastball is a weapon of the bullpen,
which is fine, but it's fine when you have some
length from your starters, which they don't have. And when
you get pushed Joe, I know, probably brings back some
(09:42):
bad memories for you. You get pushed in the DS
to a five game, knockdown, drag out fight. You can't
go up against a team like the Dodgers of full strength,
and you're seeing that that's playing out. They don't have
enough pitching. They have to keep going to the bullpen
to try to match up against the Dodger lineup. It
can't happen for the Brewers like this This is kind
of their worst scenario that is playing out in front
(10:03):
of them. Murph is up against it, no question about it.
That team is always ready to play. But I think
right now, I don't want to say it's a mismatch,
but the way the Dodgers pitched the first two games,
I think the Brewers haven't really had much of a chance.
I think about this, Joe, this is amazing. Yeah, you
talked about you know, going deep, obviously, Yamamoto the complete game,
Snell going eight. What do you think the percentage of
(10:24):
fastballs is that the Dodgers threw in the first two
games to win the first two games of spectacular pitching
and guys who are throwing in the upper nineties, the
percentage of fastballs by the Dodgers games one and two.
Speaker 3 (10:35):
Less than fifty percent.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
Yeah, a lot less, Okay, It's just amazing. Between Snell's
change up, which has really developed into a great, great pitch,
Yamamoto is split and his curveball and everything else. He's
got a good luck to the Brewers because you still
have to honor upper nineties, but you're seeing, you know,
two thirds secondary stuff with command. It's been impressive. With
(10:58):
the Dodgers have done.
Speaker 3 (10:59):
If you're describing also the very difficult DS that was
the twenty seventeen Cubs against the Nationals Washington went five games,
really as gruesomely wonderful series I've ever participated in, and
we eventually won the fifth game in Washington against a
very good, very good Washington team. And then eventually we
(11:22):
headed to LA and we had an issue on the airplane,
have spend the night on the ground in Albuquerque. Eventually
get to LA the next day, I think around noon.
And this is like we had left after the game
the night before. You're sleeping on the plane, and then
you get there the next day, a little you know,
difference in temperature, a little bit warmer, and then the
boys didn't have to go to the ballpark, but we
(11:42):
did play the next day. I think, you know that
late afternoon game where the sun's ridiculous and you're just
you know, you're buzzed out. Man. It's a really difficult
moment mentally, just because of the severity of the previous series,
the lack of sleep, the lack of rest. I know
your professionals are supposed to get it going, but trust me,
it's not easy. And then that's that's, you know, kind
(12:03):
of what happened. Plus I used wayde Davis like two
plus to win that game, but he was the only
person I thought could get that done at that moment.
So I think it was two and a third that
Wade went in Washington. I think he struck out Harpard
in the game to get us to go to the
NL see US. So you do you expend so much energy?
Sometimes you have to. I mean, there's no other thing
(12:25):
that you're just trying to win tonight's game and advance
and move on. But there is a price to pay sometimes,
and maybe that's what you're talking about here.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
Yeah, MERV talked about very similar Joe not just using
up the pitching, but he called it an emotional series
against the Cubs, and sometimes momentum is great, an emotion
is good, but when it's night after night, it can
take a toll. The other thing Murph mentioned, I mentioned
all the breaking pitches and off speed pitches Los Angeles
threw in those two games. He made it a point
(12:52):
to congratulate or at least acknowledge the job that Smith
did behind the plate. Will Smith one of the better
catchers in the game, and the way he runs that staff.
I thought that was very interesting that Murph would acknowledge
that to say the other pitching was great, but he
gave a lot of credit to the pitch calling of
Will Smith. And I look around these games, Joe and man,
you better have a really good catcher. I know that's obvious.
(13:14):
It was the classic line from Casey Stangel. Of course,
I need a good catcher on the sixty two Mets.
If you don't have a good catcher, there'll be a
lot of pass balls. But you know, Will Smith, You've
got cal Raley to me, runs a game as well
as anybody I've seen since Yadia Molina. You know Alejandro
Kirk one of the best in the business and framing pitches.
Contraras is more of an offensive guy, but he has
really improved behind the plate. Break me through, Joe, you
(13:36):
know your former catcher. You know the importance of catchers,
but especially in the postseason environment when there's so much
attention paid to sequencing and patterns and you're seeing the
same hitters night after night after night. As you get
deeper into his series, the job that these catchers and
the responsibilities that they have.
Speaker 3 (13:53):
I'll tell you one of the yes. And one of
the biggest responsibilities is that just purely the relationship between
them and the pitcher, where there's a high level of
trust going on and the highest call implement or praise
you could ever receive as a catcher. And I felt
this way was when a pitcher would say, I really
love throwing to you. I want to throw to you
because there was other catchers on the team, Guys would
(14:13):
come to you, they want to throw to you. Whenever
they said that, Wow, I mean you knew you were
doing something right. There's that that synergy between the two
of you. It so matters. So if you talk to
all these pictures on these different teams, I would bet
that they talk about how much they love throwing to
Smith or Rawley or Contreras whomever. I think that's number one.
(14:34):
After that, a lot of it has to do with
your ability to retain and ability. This is an area
that I really like analytics, the ability to stick to
the script, because there's sometimes you run into a catcher,
maybe more of a veteran catcher that really, you know,
he wants to get more feeling involved in this. What
am I feeling? One of my And that's one area
where I prefer staying to a script is on How'm
(14:57):
going to pitch to Tom Verducci, because it's pretty much
going to be accurate. And when you go rogue off
the script, that's when you're going to get hurt sometime,
and not to be in the dugout because I knew
the script that would be difficult to deal with. We
had with the Cubs Mike Borzella. We've talked about Borzy's
been on our show. I always talked about another team
got borzelloed after the game because Warsy had this wonderful
(15:19):
method that he incorporated was his own form of analytics
to break down the opposition, and he did it very well,
very methodically, and very accurately, and I know he's still
doing it. So what I'm getting to is that catchers
for the Cubs back then would able to just be
able to peek in and if they needed something off
the cheat sheet from Boresy, it was there. They had
a little sign to tell him, you know, okay, it's
(15:42):
a tough moment, give me some help right here. What
he got and whom would come on in the game,
And of course this doesn't happen every pitch. Because the
catchers pretty they did stay on script, but if they
were just hung up at all, look at Borzy. So
I don't even know if these guys are doing that
at all. I I haven't watched closely enough to see
if there's a little peak in or not. But I
see nothing wrong with that. So again the way analytics
(16:04):
works and how accurate it is regarding this, and that's
why more breaking balls have been thrown. Part of it
is because these pitchers we're talking about have great command
of the breaking ball Snell's change up. They just are
able to throw for a strike when they want to,
or have it start as a strike and become a ball.
And that's the true ability of these guys. So that's
a part in the game where analytics shines. So you
(16:27):
have to have a catch with great retention, and I
think you have to have somebody on the bench I
believe that is really qualified that can give him that
little cheat sheet answer when it's necessary.
Speaker 2 (16:37):
Here's a couple of quick stories for you on cal Raley. Listen.
If I had a vote this year of going back
in September, I was about for the MVP of the ALE,
I would go with Aaron judge because his offensive numbers,
there's a big gap between him and col But Joe.
The more I watched cal Raley play baseball and how
well he plays, he is the ultimate coach's son, and
(16:59):
what he means to this team, I'm starting to think
he's the MVP. I mean it is amazing to watch him.
I mean, really watch him the things that don't show
up in the numbers. A couple of stories. Game one,
you got Bryce Miller out there is on short rest.
First pitch he throws George Springer, hits out for a
home run, walks the next guy, gets it out, walks
(17:20):
the next guy. The building is on fire in Toronto,
which has the best home record in the American League.
The game is about to get away in the first inning.
Cal calls time out and he walks out to the
mound as slow as you've ever seen anybody walk on
the boardwalk of Atlantic City. I mean, he completely just
stopped the game, didn't say a whole lot on the mound,
(17:42):
but took his time, whited so long the umpire had
to come out there and break it up. Six pitches later,
they're back in the dugout. I talked to Pete Woodworth,
who is the pitching coach for the Seattle Mariners, because
I've seen a lot of Mariners games this year and
I've seen Cal do this countless times where he just
controls the game and every time he goes out to
(18:02):
the mount, I mean every time the pitching coach does
not follow him. And Joe, you've seen enough baseball. You
know now that mound visits are capped. You only have
five per game. That a lot of pitching coaches when
they see the catcher go out to the mound, they
want to be part of the meeting. They figured that's
their opportunity to say something to their guy out there,
because you can only have a certain number of visits
(18:23):
and I'm not going to let one pass without having
my say. So Pete Woodworth almost never, and probably the
answer is never goes out there. And I asked him
about that and he said there's a reason for that.
I said, well, it is it. He said, this is
Cal's team, it's his team. He said, I have never
questioned Cal Rawley. In fact, later that game, they brought
in Andrea's Munoz the closer, and Black Guerrero was leading
(18:46):
off the inning, so thinking about the next thing, and
cal went up to Woodworth and he had some ideas
about how to pitch to Guerrero, who's a terrific fastball hitter,
and they wanted to attack him with fastballs up too.
He started to say that to Woodworth and the pitching
coach stopped him and he said, Cal, do what you
think think is right. I'm never going to question you.
And that's what the pitching coach told me. He said,
(19:08):
I will never question cal Rally because he's never made
a bad decision. Maybe it doesn't work out, but he's
always put the work in, always put the thought in
on what the call is, and I trust him. I
mean that smoke volumes to me, Joe that in this game,
everybody wants to get nursed through the game. They put
this game in the hands of cal Rawley and let
him ride. And if you see one of the Mariners'
(19:30):
pitchers shake off cal Rawly in the course of a
game during this series, I'll give you a nickel each
time it happens, and you won't be able to buy
a cup of coffee.
Speaker 3 (19:37):
That's pretty powerful stuff. And then on top of that,
his manager was a pretty good catcher, Danny Wilson, I
saw him play for Minnesota versus University of Arizona and Tucson.
I don't even know what year that was. As a scout,
I watched him in the dugout. Also, having been a
former catcher, he understands what that position is all about,
(19:58):
and then he obviously knows the kind of work that
Rawley puts into it and relationship he has with his pitcher.
So that's kind of a kind of an interesting and
positive dynamic they have going between the pitching coach, the
manager and their potentially MVP catcher. You can't say that
very often whether you have that kind of synergy. Again,
(20:20):
this natural connection among these three men here is so
important because trust, there's the key word to any successful organization.
When you trust one another, when you get to have
open conversations in front of one another, when you don't
look at the door all the time, when that person
somebody else is in the room, just because you may be,
you know, talking about that guy a little bit. These
(20:40):
are the things that I really work against when I'm
in charge of being a manager. So I love all that.
It makes me want them to be even more successful
because that's the way it should be. There's an empowerment
going on right there. There's no control being held over
anybody else.
Speaker 2 (20:55):
Well, let's get back to our diner menu and the
pitching carousel. Something's happened in the ALCS. I can't wait
to talk to Joe about managers decisions. We'll talk about
that right after this on the Book of Joe. Welcome
(21:22):
back to the Book of Joe. I've been on the
Mariners during this run, Joe, and one thing stands out
to me. Managers who are in a hurry to go
to their bullpen are going to lose. Because Dan Wilson,
you mentioned, the Mariners manager, He's going to outstuff you
with his arms. He has more elite options and more
platoon neutral relief options than you do. So by going
(21:43):
to your bullpen early and getting your best picture, your
starting pitcher out of the game, you are going to
lose that against Seattle. And I've seen that time and
time again, whether it was Trek Scoobll coming out after
ninety two or ninety seven pitches. He did it twice
in that series. And that's not a knock on aj
Hinch because that's just who Trek Scooble is. This guy's
(22:04):
never thrown more than one hundred and eight pitches. He
just is a high effort, high energy guy who when
he's done, he's done, and a couple of times both
times actually Seattle took advantage of that. Now we're in
a series with Toronto where John Schneider, the Blue Jays manager,
has done the same thing. He's taken out his best
pitcher in my book, early, because you're not going to
(22:25):
win the back half against Seattle. In this case, it
was Kevin Gosman, it was Trey Y Savage. Let's talk
about the first decision, Joe in the game number one,
because the way the series is playing out, that's still
looming extremely large. Gosman obviously is the race. He's on
full rest. He had retired sixteen consecutive batters in Game one,
(22:47):
and cal Rawley digs out a splitter and hits it
out of the ballpark. He had thrown I think nine
out of ten pitches were splits in his previous two
at bets. He's struck out Raley the previous bet. Cal
Rawly hits a home run off a splitter. It's gonna happen, right,
The dude's got sixty two. I couldn't call it really
a mistake. You know, it wasn't as far down as
he wanted. But all right, solo home run, that's still
(23:09):
your race on the mound. Then he walks Julio Rodriguez
and he's out of the game. Now keep this in mind, Joe,
He's taken out of the game because at some point
early on, John Schneider had his bullpen up. I mean,
to go to your bullpen that quickly, you had to
have somebody ready. He's anticipating trouble. And here we are again,
third time around. And that's what really to me, really
(23:31):
informed this decision. I've got to stick with Gosman. He's
at seventy six pitches. It's the middle of the lineup.
So what does he do. He brings in little his
left handed specialists, right, and Polanco turns around. I don't
know how you feel about Polanco, Joe, but right now
he's dangerous both sides of the plate. MVP, there's a
wild pitch, and now there's a runner on second base,
(23:55):
and first base is open, and your MVP, Polongo is
in the box. They pitched to him. He gets a
base hit RBI. I asked Snyder why not walk him there,
and he talked about, well, you know, in this situation,
you trust the picture and the catcher to navigate. It's
a pitch a round situation where you either get swing
a miss on the breaking ball or it's ball four. No,
(24:17):
that's where cal Rawlely goes out to the mound. That's
where you don't leave it up to the players to
assume they're going to do the right thing. I'm sorry
that the way that inning unfolded, it was a mistake
upon mistake. I don't know how you saw it, if
you saw it playing out, Joe, but man, that just
worked completely in the favor of Seattle. You took out
your best starting pitcher, which they really enjoyed. You pitched
(24:40):
the Blanco with a base open with a lefty.
Speaker 3 (24:42):
Yeah. Personal with Gosman. When I saw they were doing that,
I looked immediately, I want to know how many pitches
is this guy thrown? Because I'm with you, man, I'm
a big fan of Gosman, and he is their guy.
He was on full rest all the above and beyond
all of that. It's not an elimination game. I mean,
if it was like the last game of a series,
we're going home. I maybe a little bit more sympathetic
(25:05):
to the whole thing, but it wasn't. And again, Gosman,
is that good and like you said, he retired so
many in a row. Pretty good hitter hits a split
down out and then here comes the walk. You might
have just been a little bit annoyed by that, and
then he's probably ready to settle back down. So I
was absolutely surprised by that. Pitching around that's man, Today's
game pitching around is that's kind of a lost art.
(25:27):
I don't really trust guys to do that.
Speaker 2 (25:29):
You let me, Joe, let me, let me put you
in the doug out then, because you've got Nailor Josh
Naylor is a left handed hitter on deck. You've got
your left handed specialist in the game. Would you just
put him on intentionally?
Speaker 3 (25:40):
I'm thinking about it as you're talking about it deck. Okay,
two outs, yes, yeah, two ounces is fine? Yes, I did, Yes,
more than likely I would have. Here's the point with that.
Believe it or not, the game starts going fast. Okay,
it does. It just does. I would bet that did
not did not even enter John Schneider's mind at that point.
I'm betting because of.
Speaker 2 (26:01):
The wild pitch, you know, as you mentioned, and it
changed the whole DYNA.
Speaker 3 (26:05):
So that's why you have to be ahead of all
of this constantly. Nobody spoke up and said, hey, what
do you think about walking him right here? Which is
really also an important you would you want a bench coach.
I don't want everybody talking to me, but if the
one guy that does talk to me, I'm good if
he says something like that to me, because you do
get lost in maybe relief pitching and what just had happened,
(26:27):
and you want to stay ahead, but sometimes you don't.
I'm betting that got lost in the shuffle a little bit.
That's my opinion. And so to say you're going to
pitch around, I'm not into it. I would just if
you're gonna picture on if that's your thought, I'm walking
a guy. That's a clear indicator to just walk him.
Just told up the four fingers put him on base.
If you had said something like I really thought he
could have got this guy. I liked the left hander
(26:50):
stuff against Polonko. We've talked about this in pregame meetings.
I really like this matchup a lot different world. But
to talk about pitching around. I'm not into that. I've
had too many times where pretty good pictures today's game
where if you can't command your fastball, I don't like
the idea of pitching around. So if the guy is
(27:10):
truly a command kind of dude, he knows how to
you know, put the ball down, put the ball in
the dirt, get the chase different. But under the circumstances,
what I just heard, what you just said, is that
the pitching around, No, that wasn't that. That's not really
what was going on. I think it got a little
bit too quick. And if you wanted to pitch around,
just go ahead and walk them.
Speaker 2 (27:30):
Yeah, good stuff there, and let's go now the game too,
because there became a similar crisis point for John Schneider.
He's got his kid out there on the mound. He's
been mister wonderful, Tredy Savage, unhittable, split the high release point,
you know, the whole drill. But wasn't quite the same
in Game two as we've seen him in a past,
certainly not against the Yankees where he allowed no hits.
(27:51):
So we get to the fifth inning and the game
is tied after a three run homer, he gave up
early that the Jays get back in the game. It's
three to three in the fifth and the inning starts
with Randy Rosa hitting a ground ball infield. Hit Jimenez
tries to make a play. He probably shouldn't make, throws
it away. He's on second base. Now at that point,
(28:11):
Schneider challenged that maybe the ball should have not advanced
the runner because it hit Gino Suarez, who's hit sitting
on the top step of the dugout. But he was
out of play. So the runner goes to second. Now
he's got a base open and cal Raley is in
the box. Okay, here's the situation, Joe. Fifth inning, there
is nobody out, the game is tight. It's the fifth inning.
(28:34):
He walks cal Raley. Now this is the guy I
gotta defend. Schneider here, he's just watched Raleigh absolutely just
hammer his team. I mean, he's got like eight home
runs in fourteen games in that ballpark in his career,
He's got the highest lugging percentage in the history of
Rogers Center. He has seen way too much at cal Raley.
He puts him on base with an intentional walk. It's
(28:57):
only the fourth time in postseason history. Somebody who was
intentionally walked with no outs early is the fifth inning? Crazy, right,
You're giving them another run, another runner with nobody out,
and then he makes a pitching change and he takes
out you Savage, And later on he would say that
he thought his velocity was dipping a little bit, just
(29:18):
wasn't the same pitcher. So he brings in Louis Varland.
He gets Julio Rodriguez, who can't catch up to his heater,
and then there's mister MVP again, Polanco, who takes some yard,
three run homer ballgame. I wasn't a fan of the
walk to cal Raley. I gotta be honest with you, Joe.
I don't want to give the other team to run
it with nobody out. Basically, what you're saying is, I
(29:38):
don't trust my guys anymore to keep cal Rally in
the ballpark. You're not setting up a double play. Varlin's
not that kind of a picture. Nobody out. Man That
is risky, and it blew up on him. And I
give credit to Seattle because what Polanco is doing is
just amazing. You know, he's hitting behind cal Raley and
Julio Rodriguez, who are two franchise players. And here's a
guy who was on the free agent market last year
(30:00):
and settled for a one year, seven point seven five
million dollar deal. He's become Babe Ruth this October. So
start with that. Given the hit or credit, but walk
me through the thinking there, Joe. If you're in the
dugout there and you've got cal rally up there with
nobody out in a tie game and the fifth inning
in first base open.
Speaker 3 (30:16):
Yeah, what was run around second base? Also is that
we're saying on the second base Yeah? Yeah, well, gosh,
this is something that.
Speaker 2 (30:23):
I mean, it's trouble either way, I get it right.
Speaker 3 (30:25):
No, Yeah, this would be this possibly would be the
example of if you had somebody out there that you
did like command wise, this is the time to try
to get him the chase out of the zone. If
in fact, and you savage with that whatever that is,
split fork, whatever, that would be the pitch to do
it with. I believe. On the other hand, the guy's
been burnt. He's burned him so bad. And this is
(30:47):
probably a conversation that occurred before the game. You know, again,
don't let Brolly beat us. Well, here it is it's
like staring us in the face. And then there's also
the potential for the double play following Old Rodriguez runs well,
but it's nevertheless, if I put first and second, I
might get two outs with one. All these thoughts are
going through your head. I know the guy that came.
Speaker 2 (31:07):
In Verlin, You say, yeah, Louis Varland came in Arland Varl.
Speaker 3 (31:11):
He got good arm. Man, that kid's got a good
arm and he got the punchy, so that all it
started looking good at that point. Let me just go
back to your savage. The first inning really put pretty
much put that guy behind the eight ball because and
I said, I was text you when it happened. That's
a perfect example for the automatic ball strike system right there,
automated because he struck that kid out. And I really believe,
(31:32):
I know, you got to make a better pitch coming
up and this and that whatever, whatever, But I really
the bottom of heart believe if that pitch had been
called accurately, here's a lot.
Speaker 2 (31:41):
Of two strike pitch too.
Speaker 4 (31:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (31:44):
Yeah, was walking back to the dugout.
Speaker 3 (31:48):
Exactly that that set everything up. He eventually gets on
base and all of a sudden, hell breaks loose. Home
run happens. But that I mean, see, I look at
things like that, games could be won or lost. I
swear with the first hitter in the first inning, I've
seen it happen, and I make not of it during
a game, and it's it's not impossible. It's not impossible.
(32:08):
You'd argue with me all you want, whoever wants to argue,
but I've seen it, and you just saw it happen
right there. That game was lost in the first inning
on that pitch. That's what I saw.
Speaker 2 (32:17):
So hey, let me stop you there again. Back to
your point. I texted you back that yes, I agree
with you that strike strike three, you got one out.
Place is still joyful, right, But Doug ednings. You know
he missed the call. There's no question about it. That
was a slider from you, Savage. And he has such
crazy movement on his pitches, his slider, And this is
(32:38):
what I was told after the Mariners had their pitters
meeting before the game. Treat his slider like a left
hander's curveball. That's the way it breaks. It has screwball
action to it. And John Schnader told me a really
interesting story that in one of you Savage's starts. The
backup catcher goes out to warm up the pitcher as
Kirk is getting the gear on Tyler Heyneman, and Heineman
says to the manager, make sure you stay on his
(33:01):
slider because it's got so outlier of movement that's sometimes
an umpire, not just a hitter, will give up on
that pitch. And that pitch came back into the strike someone,
which you're not expecting with a breaking ball like that.
So yeah, I'm with you. That definitely to me, even
though it was the first batter of the game, that
could have been a challenge next year in the abs.
(33:22):
I know you only have two, but that's a very
interesting point you made, Joe about whether that would be
a challenge or not next year or not, because maybe
it did change that inning, So go ahead.
Speaker 3 (33:30):
I think it did because then the kid like you, Savage,
he gets a punchy right there. He's a different dude
in the rest of that first inning, but he gets
a walk, and I have to believe after that pitch
was called a ball. It wasn't a borderline strike, it
was an obvious strike. It may have done something to
him psychologically. I'm just saying he's a tough kid. He's
from Potsdown, Pennsylvania, He's got to be tough. But I
(33:54):
just saw something there, and I'm the only point I'm
making is if you're ambivalent about the ABS system, there's
a perfect example of how it could work and benefit
quickly expedition and move the game on and possibly really
turn of events a different team cost we could have
won that night. And I know this first thing. I
know it's one call, but I'm just telling you, been there,
(34:14):
done that before. So that and then a lot of
these pitching changes. Gosman and your Savage almost seem predetermined
to me. It sounds like they have a very strong
pregame pre series meetings with strong opinions on how to
do this. That's what I'm seeing. You know, the bullpen wars. God,
it's so hard to win that when you don't get
depth out of your starting pitching. And they have two
guys there that I would believe going into it that
(34:38):
I would expect some depth out of both of those guys,
Gosman and the Savage, because gosh, they're good. They're really good,
and they were arrested and they were well and rock
and roll here we go. So that to me is
kind of where it got away, because once you start
expending that kind of relief pitching, what happens is then
you start spending relief pitching and bad moments. And I
hate that. I hate when I have to expend a
(34:59):
good relief pitching and bad moments and then I know
it's they get a day rest, but there's still expenditures
made there, and that always bothered me too. So, yeah,
it's starting pitching, man. Nurture it, teach you how to
go the third time through the batting order. Trust it. However,
in an elimination game, I would be more a little
bit more aggressive.
Speaker 2 (35:18):
Yeah, I'm with you one hundred percent, Joe and your
general theory there on that, and you know, for what
it's worth, I did talk to somebody on the Toronto
side about the first the game one decision with Gosman,
and the answer was pretty much exactly what you said that, Hey,
it's postseason baseball. It's third time around, we have arrested bullpen.
It's almost like a manager now is expected to run
(35:38):
the game that way because that's how it's done so
often now, and I think especially in a seven game series,
I'm with you, I'd be less inclined to start that
bullpen carousel so early in a longer series, especially again
with my ace fully rested on the mound, you know.
So to me, it's uh, you have to manage these
games a little bit differently. I get it, but getting
(35:59):
the bullpens early, I mean maybe they're also in bold
in a little bit, Joe by the fact that they
want that game in the York by using eight relief
pitchers and they all pitched well, which was like the
planetary alignment of the ages or that happened, because as
we know, the more pitchers you bring in, more likely
is that one of them just does not have it
that day.
Speaker 3 (36:17):
Dude, it's uncomfortable. I'm telling you all these best laid plans,
and in today's game with the three batter minimum, to me,
makes it more difficult because there's going to be one
of those three hitters you don't like without getting to
the third out of the inning. That rule change bothered
me as much as any eliminated the Randy Cholates of
the world, the left handed specialists primarily there even could
have been at the Chad Bradford Matt Chad with the
(36:39):
right handed specialist stuff, you know, Chad Walls. I mean,
all these guys that were really good, maybe in a
smaller sample size and in and out burger kind of
a thing which I loved. So yeah, it's different. You
just kind of alluded to it like this is what
these managers know now. I mean, this is a lot
of them never really managed through stud starting pitchers, you know,
(37:00):
going six plus innings often and encouraging them to do
so and having to be part of the landscape. It's
not a lot of the guys managing now. There's a
lot of that never really went through a minor league
situation to develop young pitching, to see it pitch more
than six innings and throw maybe hundred and ten pitches,
which is no big deal. Really. They've made it a
big deal, but it's not. So if you've never never
(37:23):
been through this, you don't quite understand it. And of
course they're going to follow the lead of what, you know,
kind of what they're been told to do. And I
think that's a lot of a lot of the bullpen
worrying in games today is the you know, the brainschild
the front offices and analytical departments, and that's that's it.
The guys that fight against it have done it differently
in the past because they've actually, you know, managed games
(37:43):
where there wasn't as much consideration before the game, which
you can or cannot do well.
Speaker 2 (37:49):
I can tell you I'm really impressed with the pitching
culture of the Seattle Mariners. They have great analytics department
when it comes to pitch shaping and knowing you know
what stuff to use. It's a great combination of that
and feel. They do the old school things really well.
They led the American League in strike percentage, They led
the American League in first pitch strike percentage. They led
(38:09):
the American League in throwing fastballs. They led the American
League and most pitches thrown with count leverage. Their mantra
is count is king. They go at you control the
bat for the first pitch and then go outside the zone.
They have a bunch of athletic elite movers on the mound.
When you hear that term movers, that means they're athletic,
and the way that they get down the mound they're not.
(38:31):
You know, these highly mechanized, high effort type deliveries, so
they can command the baseball that way and they do.
They have stuff plus command, and I'm just really impressed,
Joe with the philosophy of the Mariners, the way that
it works and the way they've all bought in and
it all again is in the hands of cal Rawley
once the game starts. But they went to Toronto with
(38:52):
two pitchers on short rests and they won both games.
And you know, they're now what five and two of
the postseason, and their best pitcher, Brian Wu, hasn't even
thrown a baseball yet. What do you see from the
Seattle staff.
Speaker 3 (39:04):
Well, you're absolutely I mean, those are really impressive numbers
that that is how you want as you run a
minor league system and you're nurturing your guys coming up.
Those are the tenants that you want to put in place,
no question. For us, a big part of it was
to dominate the one one count. When you could dominate
one to one, you really the difference for a hitter
(39:24):
between two and one and one and two count is
incredibly different. And it just first pitch, strike one, aggressive,
go after these guys. You're going to give up some
like well struck balls. You're going to do that. Remember
James Shields, we're playing I think it was Detroit, and
he gave up four points in the first inning throwing
his fastball, and they're hitting it a little bit, and
he came in. I said, listen, please don't stop doing that.
(39:46):
Just throw it in a better spot. You know, they
were just bad. They were badly located pitches, and they
were getting a little bit. But the fastball is still
going to be the best pitch in baseball. I believe
a well located strike commanded fastball is the best pitch.
Number two for me would be the change up. I
love that back and forth with the whole thing. Number
three for me is a curveball, and then number four
would be a slider cutter kind of a thing. And
(40:08):
if you are able to throw and command and your
arm could withstand a splitter a forkball. There we go.
But I would start with these basic parts of pitching society.
You your fastball, your change up, your curveball. Not I
love a curveball. A misconception there is that like you
throw it to writing's. I love opposite side hooks, where
(40:29):
you go for the back foot of the hitter, like
right curve on a left hand hit, or vice versa.
So they do all these things. That's my I guess
what I'm driving it. They do all these things. They
are fun to watch. Mover is a nice word. They
are very athletic, they're smooth, they're strike throwers, they're assertive,
they don't back down. They take charge of the moment.
And then, like you said before, perfectly they have the
(40:50):
right catcher to do it with.
Speaker 2 (40:51):
You've brought up a pitch, Joe, that we need to
talk about. We'll do that right after this break. The cutter.
Do you like it? Do you hate it? Let's talk
about the cutter after this quick break.
Speaker 4 (41:01):
On the Book of Joe.
Speaker 2 (41:15):
Welcome back to the Book of Joe.
Speaker 3 (41:16):
Joe.
Speaker 2 (41:17):
When you mentioned the cutter, it made me think of
the Selo Mariners. These Clo Mariners were twenty seventh in
the major leagues and cutters thrown. They basically have thrown
none in the postseason. Other than a couple of guys
who don't pitch in high leverage situations, Caleb Ferguson and Vargas,
there's only two guys that throw cutters. I'm not a
huge fan of the cutter. I gotta be honest with you.
(41:37):
It's not a swing and mispitch. So you're trying to
get weak contact, move the ball off the barrel. I
get it a lot of times. It's just a foul ball,
and it's gonna make you throw another pitch. It does
not put hitters away. A lot of times you fall
in love with it. It's gonna take away from the quality
and velocity of your fastball. And it's interesting to me
that the Mariners we just talked about their pitching culture,
they are not in a rush to be handing cutters
(41:59):
to their pitchers. Change speeds. Sure, absolutely that in between
pitch the cutter, which hitters hit against, not a swing
a mispitch. Interesting to me that the Seattle Mariners are
not in love with that pitch the way a lot
of teams are.
Speaker 3 (42:13):
Amen, Ellelujah. Cutter is a bad fastball. Now if you
have if you're Marianna Rivera and you have this chainsaw,
this buzzsaw completely different. I like for me the cutter.
I like it to the opposite side hitter also, and
I like it elevated. If you could elevate in with
your cutter to the opposite side hitter, that's really the
(42:34):
pitch that's going to get on his hands and you're
going to get to the weak part of the bat.
To me, the cutter's designed. It should be designed to
get to the weak part of the bat's that's it.
Right on right cutter, left on left. Cutter goes to
the fat part of the bat. I don't like it.
And it's a bad fastball, meaning it's not thrown with
the same velocity as your normal fastball. So those are
those are my opinions. If you need a break the
(42:55):
ball to throw for a strike and you can't manipulate
the curveball or even a decent slider, that's when you
have to go to something like a cutter to give
a guy something else. That's something that moves a little
bit in a fastball count to get the hitter off
the dead fastball. So never been a fan. It's a
bad fastball. It should be elevated, elevated in opposite side.
(43:15):
For me, if you can't throw a break and ball
any kind, then maybe have to do it because fastball
for a strike in a fastball count, it maybe just
takes it off the sweet spot of the bat just
by moving a little bit, but it should always be
thrown for the weak part of the bat.
Speaker 2 (43:31):
Interesting too, that both the Dodgers and the Mariners who
are out in front and there. Lcs's don't throw many
cutters at all. Dog hate only thirty eight cutters. The
Mariners don't thrown only thirty four the entire postseason. Talking
about less than a handful of game.
Speaker 3 (43:46):
Bad fastball, I call it a bad fastball. I mean,
David Price really got into it, James Shields got into it.
My problem with that also is when you're throwing that pitch,
when you want to put that in your reperts well,
and we talked about schemes earlier in here, although he
did pretty well again, but whenever you're trying to include
a pitch into your mix, you have to make room
for it. So you're gonna you're gonna not throw something
(44:06):
you're really good at for a pitch that's not nearly
as good. So again, if there's a necessity to do
something differently, to add something based on results, based on
some things you can't manipulate the ball, your army, you wrist,
whatever cannot do, then that's an alternative. But I don't
like to put another pitch in the guy's mix who's
pretty good, because then he's got to fit it in.
(44:28):
Sometimes so normally something like this to me is based
on need and not to try to be creative to
add to a great James Shield's change up in his curveball.
I love this curveball. I used to ask them to
ask him please throw it more often and again, especially
against lefties. But the guys want to throw this cutter.
It kind of became the pitch dejure I think, like
(44:50):
between twenty ten and twenty twenty kind of. And I'm
very happy to hear that it's going away.
Speaker 2 (44:54):
Last thing, Joe before we get out of here, will
somethingly get to your thought of the day coming up?
But a lot of managerial news. I mean, it's what
eight or nine openings around the game. Things I want
to get your take on here. One the possibility that
Albert Poolhols could be the next manager of the Angels,
and also that Mike Shilt stepped down as Padre's manager.
(45:15):
You know, Mike's the young man in his late fifties.
That is a great job, talented team that spends money
in a baseball crazy market. Hopefully everything is okay with
Mike as far as what's going on away from the field.
It's a personal decision, but that one really struck me
as surprising. Didn't see that one coming. As I said,
it's one of the better jobs in baseball, and Mike's
(45:37):
shilt is a good baseball guy walked away from it,
which you don't see happen a lot. So I know
there's a lot of openings. We're not going to go
through them all, but those two in particular, Joe really
jumped out at me. So your quick thoughts on those.
Speaker 3 (45:47):
Yeah, Shilty's a lifer. I mean, that's that's the part
of it that I was concerned about too. I heard
about it but yesterday, the day before, and I send
him a text. I haven't heard back from him yet.
I don't even know if I have the right number
or not. You may have changed it since then. Mazes
is one to text me back. But I like the
guy a lot. Worked against it, and we had a
lot of great conversations that did an event Saint Louis
that we had an opportunity to visit with also, But
(46:09):
we're talking about a lifer. It is not like just
a passing fancy with this guy. This guy is baseball.
You know, that's who he is. So that that was
part of my concern and That's why I reached out
just make sure he's cool, and offered the opportunity to
give me a blast if he wanted to. It is
a grind all the time, but this guy is a
b is baseball. That's That's who Shilty is. On the
(46:30):
other side with Albert. Thing that I liked that Albert
did do is I like the fact that he did
go and managing winter ball. I really appreciate that because
a lot of times guys don't even do something like that.
And I don't understand that because I done this for
a while and I could never even imagine walking to
a big league dugout as a team's manager without ever
having understood how to run a game with what goes
(46:53):
into at the nuance of it. Whatever you could, you
could break it all down, all different areas, fast areas.
So at least he did that. The thing about Albert,
if in fact he were to get the job, you're
going to see a strong, I think heavy Saint Loui influence. There.
Had a lot of good conversation with him when he
first got when I first got to the Angels, very sharp,
well thought out baseball mind. He is. He's got strong opinions,
(47:13):
and I think a lot of it's based on working
with Tony LaRussa and of course sending in the Cardinal organization.
They were you know, they're gritty, they're tough guys over there, man,
and you had to come to play. They weren't going
to give you anything how to take it. So I
think he'll bring that kind of an attitude if in
fact he does get the job. But more than anything,
I like the fact that he at least made the
attempt to go out and manage first. I do believe
(47:35):
that in the organization in the future that's wanting to
give guys this opportunity, try to talk to them into
or ask them to make them go. I left to
see them scout an area for one draft at least,
and I love to see them go do one half
season of rookie ball to see what that feels like,
to get your feet on the ground, cut your teeth
a little bit, and understand everything that goes into this.
(47:56):
To me, those are still the best training grounds that
would be scouting rookie ball. And love to send him
to an instructional league, but I don't even know what
we do with that anymore.
Speaker 2 (48:04):
It's a great point. It reminds me of Dusty Baker
did the same thing, went to go managing winter ball.
Knew we wanted to manage have been a really good
hitting coach. But I love when those guys take the
initiative and do something, and players of that caliber, like
an Albert, Let's face it, they don't have to do it.
He could get a job without doing it. But I
love the fact that he did do it. So that
brings us to our ninth inning here, Joe, there's no
(48:25):
question you got the ball in your hands. What do
you got for us today to take us home on
the book of Joe.
Speaker 3 (48:31):
Well, this came with the Dodgers in mind, you know,
just thinking about the playoffs in general and what we're
seeing covered that today. But the thing that stands out
to me is how they have flipped their switch. We
talked about that the Jimmy Edmund switched. They got one.
The whole team has one. I think they've been plotting
and planning for this, you know, this kind of run
at the end, they expected it to happen, and it
(48:51):
is just based on what I want to get to
in a moment. So the Dodgers were the motivation for
me doing this. So I just was researching some things
and came to Benny Franklin. How about that? But his
quote is an investment in knowledge pays the best interest,
and I wanted to include an investment in talent pays
the best interest. I think they're almost synonymous. They're almost
(49:13):
synonymous terms right now, right, I mean the way baseball?
Yeah right, I mean, so information we've talked about this
where analytics is really powerful in the acquisitional process. It
might be the most superstar element of analytics to me
is to find and bring it to the fold the
right people. So an investment in knowledge slash talent pays
(49:33):
the best interest, and the Dodgers are demonstrating that right now.
Speaker 2 (49:37):
Great stuff, Joe. Well, the games have been great, the
ratings have been great. Good, I mean, really, this has
been a spectacular postseason in Major League Baseball. We're guaranteed
to have at least one team in the World Series
who hasn't been there in a lifetime, literally, So look
forward to what's ahead and we'll get right back to
it on the Book of Joe next time.
Speaker 3 (49:56):
Thanks Joe, Thank you, Tommy and Joy Seattle.
Speaker 1 (50:06):
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