The Book of Joe: The 2024 World Series

In this episode of 'The Book of Joe' Podcast, Joe Maddon and Tom Verducci prepare for the World Series between the Dodgers and Yankees.  Joe talks about the history of the teams and the legacies of the matchup.  What should you expect to see from Shohei Ohtani and Aaron Judge?  Joe explains how we would approach both as an opponent.  Plus, find out who Tom and Joe ultimately see winning the series!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
The Book of Joe podcast is a production of iHeartRadio.

Speaker 2 (00:15):
Hey Daron, Welcome back.

Speaker 3 (00:16):
It's the latest episode of the Book of Joe Podcast
with me, Tom Producci and of course Joe.

Speaker 2 (00:22):
Madden and Joe.

Speaker 3 (00:24):
Both of us are old enough to remember when the
Yankees played the Dodgers back in the late seventies into
nineteen eighty one. But if you're under the age of
forty three, this World series is something that you've never seen,
and you probably might not know. You are in for
a real treat. How about Yankees Dodgers again in the

(00:44):
World Series.

Speaker 4 (00:45):
Joe, no question, you go back to the you know,
reggis monumental performance with the home runs on three consecutive pitches,
to the feistiness of the whole thing. It was always
a feisty thing, even going back to the Brooklyn days.
Fortunate enough that I knew Buzzy Vesey. Of course, we
knew Don Zimmer, new Preston Govez, who knew Walter Alston.

(01:07):
I mean, you have all these six degrees of separation
connected somehow. Remember the black and white videos, Remember all
of that stuff. Man, That's the part that the really
romantic part of the game, that today's generation doesn't quite
get to understand is how we grew up and what
really attracted us. And it's still part of our fabric
and how we view it constantly. And that's why when

(01:30):
you get accused of being old whatever, just the fact
that it was spectacular. It was larger than life, the
players were the players were not human as far as
I concerned. They were not When you went to the
ballgame and you saw them out there, they still weren't human.
There was that component to it that will never be recaptured.
So when you get down to these two teams getting

(01:53):
after it right now and with the cast of characters
that they got, it's pretty special.

Speaker 2 (01:59):
Yeah, there's no doubt.

Speaker 3 (02:00):
And it's great for baseball if you're a fan, even
if you're not a Yankees fan or a Dodgers fan,
to see Shoe Otani and Aaron Judge get to the
World Series for the first time. You want to see
the best players on the biggest stage, and we've got
that in the series. We've got amazing venues Dodger Stadium
with these five o'clock starts specific time, it's just spectacular

(02:21):
to see the sunset behind the San Gabriels and just
the kind of tinge of sunlight at the end of
the day there. It doesn't really affect the play of
the game because the shadows are really not enforced at
that point, but just the beautiful setting everything about it.

Speaker 2 (02:36):
It should be an epic series.

Speaker 3 (02:37):
But Joe, let's talk about how these two teams got
here first, and then we'll talk about how we think
the series is going to go. I think about the
managing job that Dave Roberts did in this series. In
the NLCS, now you can tell me the Dodgers were
a better team than Mets.

Speaker 2 (02:53):
Buy that.

Speaker 3 (02:54):
But the Mets had a lot of momentum. They were
the hot team. I love the way they were playing baseball.
Maybe not that depth of bullpen, but everything else they
matched up well against. The Dodgers had to win a series,
and going back to actually an elimination game against the Padres,
three of his eight games were bullpen games, including clinchers,
and I look at the way he did that, where

(03:15):
in the LCS his starters gave him only twenty and
one third innings over six six games. They never lost
the lead in the four games that they won.

Speaker 2 (03:26):
Joe, it's hard to do.

Speaker 3 (03:27):
You know that, because all it takes is one guy
in your bullpen who's going to slip up, And that
happened in Game two when Andrew Knack went out there
and was pretty much gassed the rookie pitcher, and the
Mets hung five on him. But tell me a job
that Dave Roberts did here, because he has not gotten
a lot of credit over the years with the record
that he has, which is amazing. I thought he pulled
off an incredible job. But what he called threading the needle.

(03:49):
They decided before the series they were not going to
chase deficits of four runs or more by using their
high leverage guys, and they let a couple of games
get away, and that happened in two and five. But
when he got the six, he had to totally rest
bullpen is high leverage guys, So.

Speaker 2 (04:07):
I thought, managing job.

Speaker 3 (04:08):
But Dave Roberts was as good of a series as
anybody on his active roster.

Speaker 4 (04:13):
Yeah, that was was really well done. And they knew
they had to do that based on the limiting limited
starting pitching that they had just based on injuries, so
of course they did.

Speaker 5 (04:22):
They did a great job.

Speaker 4 (04:23):
He did a great job of prepping before the game,
because that's all that's all prep work. I mean, there's
you have to make decisions in a moment, of course,
but you really need to lay that kind of stuff
out in.

Speaker 5 (04:32):
Advance in order to have it slow down.

Speaker 4 (04:36):
If you're just going to wait to react in the
moment in the game with all those different items going on,
to get kind of quick and then you get to
the point where you could vacillate on a decision or
try to pick between one or two guys. It was
something you have to do in advance, and it really
appeared to me as though he did and they did,
and that it came down really well. The thing that

(04:56):
really stood out to me about David and this series
was even your little interviews with them during the game,
in between innings whatever. There's a on this about him,
not that there's not always been, but Dave speaks really well,
he sees very good, he's eloquent. But also I thought
his method regarding you know, it was a low heartbeat
for him. Also, after all, he's the guy that stole

(05:18):
the base that put the Red Sox in.

Speaker 5 (05:22):
The position to win a couple of years ago.

Speaker 4 (05:24):
So that's what really stood out to me was how
he approached it, because when things get crazy, especially in
those games, I promise you, if there's twenty five guys
on the bench, fifty eyes are looking at you when
things don't go well. And so beyond everything else that
he did and did well and they did as a group,

(05:44):
because it's not easy to find that many solvent relief
pictures that are even ahead guys that could produce the
way they did, it's the way he did it, and
that's what really stands out to me, and that really
screams a little bit of the fact that he's been there,
done that before. He wasn't going to let it get
too quick on him, and a lot of not being
too quick is about prepper. So there's so many different

(06:06):
positives you could say about that. But he did a
magnificent job and so did they.

Speaker 2 (06:10):
Yeah, I mean, you think about it.

Speaker 3 (06:11):
He was down a couple of those high leverage guys,
with Alex Vessi and Bruce dar Gratterol not able to
play physically. Daniel Hudson pitched game one and was already
out for game two. He couldn't go back to back,
so he was really limited. So then you saw a
game like Game five, where you've got an offense. Let's
face the Dodger scored more runs than any National League
team in a postseason series.

Speaker 2 (06:30):
You're never out of it with that offense.

Speaker 3 (06:32):
And there was a game where in Game five, where
Mookie Betts at the home run and all of a sudden,
it's like a four run game. Your offense is coming around,
and he still left Brent Honeywell out there, and I
think it took some discipline to do that, to not
chase four runs with his high leverage guys, and you know,
he took some grief for.

Speaker 2 (06:48):
It, but in the end it worked out.

Speaker 4 (06:51):
Yeah, well you have to you consider this too. We
talked about the pitching and the injuries whatever, but the
offense roasted the occasion, right. I mean, they did up
and down that lineup. I mean, I would almost believe
they got together in their meetings and said something to
the to the effect that, listen, boys, you know we're
hurting here pitching wise. These guys are going out there.

(07:11):
A lot of them were on fumes and we're okay,
you know, we're we're in pretty good shape from a
position player perspective. So I really, you know, really great
players have this dimmer switch and where there's they don't
just turn things on and off. They could, you know,
if they're tired, fatigue, whatever, maybe it's not a full blast,
but they turned that sucker up because that whole group,

(07:33):
whatever that dimmer switch was capable of, was on full blast.
So I think the offense really knew that they had
to do something special and they did.

Speaker 3 (07:41):
Yeah, it's a great observation, Joe, because you know, in
the past years with Died your teams we rightly and
probably wrongly, so we associate them with Hollywood, not you know,
a bunch of stars, not necessarily a team. You know,
in the last I want to say month and a half,
this team has really bonded to the point where when
they flew from Los Angeles to New York for the
middle games of the LCS, they basically told this staff

(08:04):
and the families, you are flying on a separate flight.
It was a player's only flight to New York, which
I've never heard of before, and that night when they
got in they had a player's only dinner. There's been
a lot of bonding that's been going on with this
Dodger team, and I think you're seeing that show up
with the way they're playing offensive baseball, I mean their
offensive series and against the Mets. And listen, the Mets

(08:25):
had trouble all year walking people, and it was a
bad matchup to begin with as many batters as the
Mets walk and as disciplined as Dodger hitters are.

Speaker 2 (08:34):
You knew that was going to come into play.

Speaker 3 (08:36):
But I thought offensively, the way they played baseball up
and down was spectacular, and by the end they actually
got the bats of Taska Hernandez and Will Smith back,
so they have to feel even better going to the
World Series. Let's talk about how the Yankees got there, Joe, Listen.
I think the path opened up for them with Kansas
City and Cleveland. Taking nothing away from those two teams,

(08:57):
but the Yankees had the best record against the Central
Division than any team against any division this.

Speaker 2 (09:01):
Year, and that carried through the postseason.

Speaker 3 (09:04):
But I gotta tell you the way that it ended
with the Wan Soto home run, that was, in my opinion,
when I have been watching baseball, the worst pitch call
I have ever seen in a key spot. I'm on
a flight flying out to Los Angeles and I'm watching
on game day MLB game day. So I don't see
the video, but I can see the pitches and where

(09:25):
they are the strikes one one hundred.

Speaker 2 (09:26):
Gaddis is throwing change.

Speaker 3 (09:28):
Up sliders, change up sliders all down the zone, and
I'm thinking to myself, with each one, stay there, don't
even try to throw a high fastball to this guy.

Speaker 2 (09:38):
Don't try to waste one.

Speaker 3 (09:39):
Don't think you're going to fool him with all of
a sudden dropping in a fastball.

Speaker 2 (09:44):
And what does he do.

Speaker 3 (09:45):
He throws a high fastball to the best fastball hitter
on the planet, and we won. Soto won the series
right there with that swing. If your bow nailor, and
you saw him rise up, Joe, you cannot call for
that pitch.

Speaker 2 (10:00):
I'm sorry.

Speaker 3 (10:01):
We've seen it, do it against ver Lander in a postseason,
against Garrett call in the postseason. He has ten postseason
home runs and eight of them are on high fastballs.
I just do not understand that. Talking to some Dodgers
people the next day, and they said, listen, there are
some pitches that we call red blinking lights. No matter
what happens, no matter where the count goes, no matter

(10:24):
what you think the hitter might be sitting on you
cannot throw one of those pitches, and a high fastball
to bon Soto is a red blinking light. I think
that's a terrible way for the Guardians to have to
go home on a pitch that you just cannot throw
onn Soto.

Speaker 5 (10:39):
I cannot agree more. I saw that you're right, and
it's the.

Speaker 4 (10:43):
Old Vladimir Guerrero deal for me. When we played against vlad,
I used to tell our pitchers, don't ever think you
have him set up for anything. Don't ever think that
he's not. You may think that, you may you know,
whatever your history tells you, your wonderful career highlights for
you tell you, don't ever think he's set up for
a pitch.

Speaker 5 (11:03):
If he can reach it, it can get smoked. Just
know that.

Speaker 4 (11:07):
So when you get to that two strike situation with
lad make sure that he can't reach it. That's what
I describe it when, especially when he was hot, don't
let him reach it. When the situation like you're talking about,
that's that's where I love like talked about him off
and Mike Borsello on the bench in a situation that hot,
I don't mind my catcher peeking in.

Speaker 5 (11:24):
I really don't.

Speaker 4 (11:25):
I kind of like it actually, And of course I
want my pitch, my catcher to call the game in
conjunction with the pitcher. I want all the work done
before the game. I don't it does. You don't have
to in the NFL. You don't have to send every play,
and I don't agree with that. But when it gets
really hot, the peek in's not a bad thing. And
we had this mechanism in Chicago where he could peek

(11:46):
in and whether it was Rossy Mickey or Wilson Contraras,
they would look and Borzi always knew what that blinking
red light was and that pitch would not be thrown.

Speaker 5 (11:58):
I could not.

Speaker 4 (11:58):
I mean, listen, I saw it. And then even for
that matter, I mean the home run by Stanton on
the hanging slider. I know he chased a couple, but
that's great, and so the next one cannot be where
that one was. I'm just saying that you can't make
those kind of mistakes. You could bounce it, you could
throw three feet outside, you couldever you want, or you
can just walk them. But those are the kind of
mistakes that beat them up right there. That's why they

(12:21):
eventually were eliminated. There's some really obvious mistakes. And I'm
not blaming pictures, I'm not blaming anybody. I'm just saying
when you get to those points, you got to make
better decisions. That's based on like the blinking red lights,
and in game, you gotta communicate with somebody that really
knows what's going on on your bench, I think, especially
with the information available and the kind of work that's

(12:43):
done before the game. So I often talked about teams
got borzelloed when I would watch this whole thing unfold
from the bench with the with the cubby. So that's
what I saw, And yeah, it was really a badly
chosen pitch.

Speaker 3 (12:58):
Yeah, I actually went back and thought about the other
one that comes to mind. Nineteen eighty eight World Series
Game one, Dodger Stadium. Yeah, Ack against Kirk Gibson, where
Kirk Gibson just was fighting off fastballs late to the ball,
fouling them off, and that basically got tired of Gibson
just spoiling pitches and decided I'm just gonna throw a

(13:19):
backdoor slider, of course, and it really it sped up
his bat.

Speaker 2 (13:23):
It was the only pitch he could really hit. For
a home run.

Speaker 3 (13:26):
You know, the fastball he might have hit for a single,
grounded something through somewhere, bloped something somewhere. But after those fastballs,
and I forget how many in a row he threw,
he just he literally got tired of Gibson to be
in the box and said, I need to basically throw
a literal wrinkle to this guy and boom, history gets
made that way that happens.

Speaker 4 (13:44):
You're exactly right, and that always bothers me when a pitcher.

Speaker 5 (13:47):
Thinks he has to do something else.

Speaker 4 (13:49):
Now you'll see, like you said, there's some there's some
guys in today's game too. They can't catch up to
a fastball. They have a proverbial slider speed back. And
then when you thrown a couple in a row, then
you think, my god, I have to throw it.

Speaker 5 (14:01):
I have to do something differently. No, you don't, you don't.

Speaker 4 (14:04):
You just have to locate that pitch, maybe just a
little bit better that you know, is the better pitch
to throw to him. If you choose to go to
Plan B, it has to be strike ball. It has
to be You cannot be ball strike Guys that really
hammer breaking balls. And furthermore, if he's falling off fastballs.
Gibson is two things right, he might not be able
to catch up. And then one number two, he's just
sitting on breaking ball too. Miguel Tahata infamous at that,

(14:27):
really really good at that where he would sit break
the ball man, and I promise you it would look
bad and then all of a sudden you you'd make
the mistake and then it'd get loud and steroly Marte
he likes I believe he likes middle of the field
with two strikes. He likes soft with two strikes, He
likes middle. These are things that I would watch from
the side. So don't you don't have to go to

(14:50):
something different if what you're doing is very successful. And
don't believe that if the guy's really good at something,
you're going to all of a sudden fool him.

Speaker 5 (14:58):
You're not. You're not.

Speaker 4 (15:00):
These guys are that good. And that was so to
prove that out.

Speaker 3 (15:03):
Yeah, remind me of Taskar Hernandez. He's exactly that kind
of hitter you're talking about Joe where he does not
hit plus velocity and the Mets ate him up in
that series until the last game. So I don't want
to say he has slider bat speed, but he can
hit sliders and he can hit mediocre fastballs, but he
got bullied with pure velocity. I think the Dodgers know

(15:25):
that that's the way Garrett Cole, especially in Verdain, with
really good fastballs, are going to attack him.

Speaker 2 (15:29):
And you're right.

Speaker 3 (15:30):
I think when you have a hole like that, you
exploit it and you don't feel like you have to
show him something different.

Speaker 4 (15:35):
If it is different, like it could be. It's got
to move his feet. I mean, you got to be
a major league pitcher. You got to have command and control.
So you move his feet just you know, get him uncomfortable.
Or if you're going to throw that break the ball,
it's got to be a strike ball. It's got to
be it's got to be almost bouncing. It's got to
be in the dirt. It's got to be like six
to eight inches outside, just to make him, you know, differently,

(15:56):
just set that clock in his head a little bit differently.

Speaker 5 (15:58):
But to think you're going to full people.

Speaker 4 (16:01):
And I mean, rid this Vlattie really because I have
Glad he is a coach with the Angels in the
early two thousands, and I'm watching this stuff, man, and
you know, all of a sudden, people think they got
this guy set up and wam, he would just smoke
something because he could reach it. So it's it's a
it's a very frustrating principle for me as a manager,
even if I'm not privy to this guy in report beforehand,

(16:24):
I can see you can see can't catch up to
a fastball. And that's another thing for seamed fastball. I
know it's straight, but I'll tell you what it gets
on and hit it pretty quickly. The two seamer little
flatters sometimes run into a barrel. The picture thinks he
sees and he does see movements, so he thinks it
might be somewhat better. Four seemers that get on the
guy quickly and get to that spot quickly.

Speaker 5 (16:44):
That's the wind.

Speaker 4 (16:44):
A lot of times he hitters have a hard time
catching up too. It's it's frustrating, man, because I promise
you I go through these conversations on the bench all
the time when you know you're not even privy to
the pregame and you know you know what you're seeing.

Speaker 3 (16:59):
It's a lot of we're getting into the funds part now, Joe,
We're gonna get into the matchup.

Speaker 2 (17:04):
How do you pitch to Otani?

Speaker 3 (17:05):
How do you pitch to judge phbably, to John Carlos,
Stanton red hot and what do you do about him? Oh,
we got a lot to talk about here, matching up
the Yankees Dodgers World Series. We'll dive into the matchups
right after this. Welcome back to the World Series edition

(17:31):
of the Book of Joe podcast. Joven talking about matchups
and watching show. Hey, and he's just been amazing it.
He almost seems to will himself on base, which he
has done. You got to make seventeen times in the NLCS.
That's a Dodger postseason record. Was in the middle of
a lot of rallies. But here's what I noticed here.
You can pitch to him. You know his damage is

(17:52):
mostly up. You cannot go up, you cannot go in
if you put the ball down the show, Hey, Otani,
you've got a chance.

Speaker 2 (18:00):
And looking at his numbers, that bears it out. In
the regular season.

Speaker 3 (18:02):
In the postseason, he's zero for ten on anything that's
along that bottom rail of the strike zone. Now, I
know he's too good of a hitter, Joe to pitch
to him one way, but he's another guy I don't
want to challenge him up.

Speaker 2 (18:15):
If I'm the Yankees, I'm.

Speaker 3 (18:17):
Playing keep away basically hard away, soft down. Tell me
what you see of a Tani playing now in his
first world series and really is standing out in his
first postseason to nobody's surprised.

Speaker 4 (18:30):
Yeah, if you're gonna go up at all, it's got
to be from what I'm seeing elevated in it's your
only possible chance, although he can get to that if
he's really cheating in that area. The big thing about
this for me would show I'd like to see him
be a little bit more patient in this series, and
everybody's talking about what he's unable to do with nobody
on base, I think he'd be accept a couple of walks,

(18:51):
especially early. He's going to start seeing more pitches that
he kind of likes and he's not going to miss him.
But if he keeps his strike zone rather large, and
again I know he's done all this damage and with
people on base, I get up, and in general's terms,
if he wats just a little bit or just shows
a little bit of patience, he's really going to go off.
In this series. He's going to cover a lot of
these different things as they can't. Pitchers can't continually make

(19:13):
great pitches. They might make it a one or two whatever,
but at some point it's just not going to go
exactly where they want to, and he is going to
cover it. So from his perspective, more patients, I believe
from the other side perspective, if they do want to
go elevated fastball, it's got to be I think close
enough to him that he can't really extend to it.
But overall, I mean he watched the lefties, I would

(19:34):
sweep slider him to death as a lefty, and as
a righty, I would down in a way change him
to death, change up him to death, or breaking ball
on the deck on the ground. If the guy likes
a low ball, go lower than that. You know, if
a guy likes a high ball, go higher than that.

Speaker 5 (19:50):
Again, So if they either want to elevate, it's got
to be like a.

Speaker 4 (19:52):
So high that you just really can't get to it
chase what he likes. So it's either low low, or
it's way above but elevated in and for show to
be really successful, I think in this series, if you
were to be if he shows patients coming out of
the shoot a little bit heads up.

Speaker 3 (20:08):
Yeah, which always to me, And you know, as a manager, Joe,
when you go into a series where there's that one
guy you need to account for. The Mets, to me
did not have anyone who really matched up well against Shoe.
This Padres did with Tanner Scott. Now you look at
the Yankees and they expect that Nestor Cortez is going
to be back on the roster. He might be that guy. Now,

(20:29):
I don't know whether he replaces Tim Masa on the
roster or he adds a third left to that bullpen.
But you've got Tim Hill as well. But I think
I agree with you, Joe. You're talking about the slidering
him to death. Probably the sweeper of Cortes. I know,
Tani is where Aaron Boone wants to go.

Speaker 4 (20:48):
Yeah, I mean they have to be, of course they are.
They're they're analyzing all this. They've been they've been on
top of this for weeks, anticipating the Yankees being there
and for both sides, and they've they've anticipated the Dodgers
being there. So yeah, I mean it's at this point
here again it's you.

Speaker 5 (21:05):
You can't get cute.

Speaker 4 (21:06):
You got to go and believe whatever you believe in.
When you're looking at your pot, if you don't commit
to it, it ain't going in the hole. So whatever
you believe in, you got to commit to it. Now,
that doesn't mean you're not going to make a mistake,
of course you are. Of Course he's going to try
to do this and it's not going to happen. The
ball is going to go far, of course, But as
long as you have a committed plan that everybody buys
into and you believe this is accurate, stay with it,

(21:28):
go with it. It's not always going to be perfect. But
if your process, and I use the term process, is fearless.
If you really stay with this process, meaning that you're
not going to get caught up and results and outcome
all the time, and you're able to you're done better,
able to put fear in your back pocket, or you're
not concerned about making a mistake. You're just going to
go out there and do what you're capable of doing,

(21:50):
because that's where all your focus is lying. That's what
they have to be able to do in this situation.

Speaker 3 (21:55):
I believe Aaron Judge had an amazing year at the
plate obviously, but especially for me Joe in terms of
his plate discipline career low. I think he was on
the eighteen percent chase rate. That's elite. You watch him
here in the postseason, he's way above that. I think
the last time I checked, he was around the twenty
seven percent chase rate. You know, what are a judge

(22:15):
if you can it's harder to do than plan for.
But if you can dot the ball down the way
in that box right hand corner there away from judge, you.

Speaker 2 (22:27):
Got a chance.

Speaker 3 (22:28):
Whether it's fastballs, especially sinkers, backdoor sinkers, or sliders, keep.

Speaker 2 (22:32):
The ball there. You limit his damage.

Speaker 3 (22:34):
But lately he's been chasing the ball under the zone,
which he normally doesn't and a little bit farther off.
He's the guy's hitting two three in his postseason career, Joe,
it's more than two hundred played appearances. Now he does
have some home runs. That's always the danger with judge.
When he's not going well, you make a mistake. It's
not a base hit, it's a home run. But tell
me what you see at a judge, And if you're
the Dodgers, how do you take advantage of a little

(22:56):
bit more aggressiveness you've seen from him?

Speaker 4 (22:58):
That's his patience. I mean, you don't have to throw them.
Don't throw them strikes until you have to. Especially if
you said saf you get ahead, once you get ahead,
that I really would strike ball, strike ball, strike ball
as often as you can per pitch. And from Judge's perspective,
it's just got to be a more patient approach.

Speaker 5 (23:14):
It's not unlike Show.

Speaker 4 (23:15):
Hey, right now, as far as I'm watching, both of
them can maintain their patients and force pictures more over
the plate. It's hard because then you're al you're relying
on the guy coming up after you. But I mean,
if you're just going to be an out because if
you're not getting what you can absolutely handle and drive,
it's it's frustrating to the hitter, of course it is,
and that's what causes the expansion, but you're not.

Speaker 5 (23:36):
Really helping your team.

Speaker 4 (23:37):
Want to help your team, but you're not by saying,
I'm just going to expand my zone right here. So similarly,
I think both Show and Judge have to show patients
early in the series. They have to force pictures over
the play and mistakes are going to happen, and you
got to be ready for the mistake. You're down in
a way. It's got to be tough. He's tall, showy,
same thing, he's tall.

Speaker 5 (23:56):
They like they they like the ball up in.

Speaker 4 (23:58):
The zone even when they if he's noticed what especially
judge how he lays back and even show they're still
able to get to the elevated pitch. It's really uncanny
how they can do that. But they're tall people, so yes,
spend a lot of time, both of them. I would think,
you know, if you want to talk to anything about
with your hitting coaches, about really becoming more finite, my

(24:18):
strike zone, really becoming more selective, and you could actually
kind of like try to guess where they're going to
go and really hunt that area and discipline yourself to
the spot. You don't want strike ball, I got to
stay away from it. Ball strike you got to be
really ready for. And a lot of times the ball
strike is taken because the guy you think's going to
be inside where it's going to be high, and all
of a sudden it becomes a strike. These are the

(24:40):
kind of conversations I think I would have with these
guys under these circumstances.

Speaker 3 (24:43):
Yeah, we talked about this before too, Joe that watching
Kansas City and Cleveland pitch to the Yankee lineup. To me,
it was not good baseball because they were, I don't
want to say, afraid to throw the ball over the plate.
You know, got to get pictures more credit than that.
But they're trying to get the Yankees out out of
the strike zone and that just simply does not happen.

Speaker 2 (25:03):
To get yourself into bad counts.

Speaker 3 (25:04):
We're looking at the two best teams in baseball in
terms of strike zone discipline, the Dodgers and the Yankees.
I think the Dodgers know because they play very similar
type of offense themselves. You're not going to win this
game getting a ton of Chase swings or this series
on a ton of Chase swings from the New York Yankees.
At some point, you're going to have to control the
strike zone. And to me, and you made a good

(25:25):
point of this, Joe, it begins with getting strike one
and controlling the strike leverage. Then you can get outside
the strike zone. To me, that's going to be the
key to this series for both teams is early incounts.
Controlling those counts that can open up the strike zone,
because if you're not aggressive early accounts and try to
pitch from behind.

Speaker 2 (25:42):
You're gonna get waffled.

Speaker 5 (25:44):
Get killed.

Speaker 4 (25:44):
That's al stuff from the early two thousands, middle like
two thousand and six, seven, eight ninety ten.

Speaker 5 (25:49):
That's all it was about.

Speaker 4 (25:50):
If you couldn't get those the Red Sox and the
Yankees out and in the strike zone, you can't.

Speaker 5 (25:54):
You're done.

Speaker 4 (25:54):
You're gonna get You're gonna get French fried every night.
And that's what you're seeing right here. Also, yeah, strike
one is important, so it's the ultimate count. Even on
one of the paintings I did with Michelangelo standing with
the David on the mount at Wrigley Field, you have
Michelangelo whispering in his ear about the importance of.

Speaker 5 (26:14):
A one to one count.

Speaker 4 (26:15):
When you flip that to one two, it's a completely
different world. When it slipped the two to one. Heads up, man,
bad things can happen to you. And this is it,
I mean, And you're right. It's not that guys are afraid,
but they become too fine. And once you do do that,
then you are playing into the hands of the group
that is very patient to play this.

Speaker 5 (26:35):
Your stuff's absolutely oppressive.

Speaker 4 (26:37):
The other point about that too, when you're able to
throw another pitch, and especially a change up when you
get behind an account strike like one O two oho
change up strike is.

Speaker 5 (26:46):
Really a good pitch.

Speaker 4 (26:47):
So if you look at the pitchers that are really
able to command a change up when they get behind,
and even to the point, like you know, when it's
deeper int account, if you could command a change up,
that could be very beneficial against teams like this. So yeah,
first pitch strike absolutely, really if you could control and
command the one one count bully for you. And I've

(27:07):
always liked the full count. I've always wanted to do
a study on whoever wins the battle of the full
counts on a nightly basis, wins the game, whether he
as a pitcher of the three twos or you as
a hitters as a hitter three twos, who controls and
commands a three to two count of always thought place
big in victory.

Speaker 2 (27:24):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (27:25):
By the way, those full counts, that's considered a hitter's count.
You know, the average, especially on base percentage, way in
favor of the hitter at that point.

Speaker 2 (27:33):
So if you're a pitcher and you can win full counts,
good on you.

Speaker 3 (27:36):
One more guy that we have to talk about because
he has emerged as an absolute beast this postseason is
John Carlos Stent and the Dodgers are going to have
to account for this guy because he's a different player
in the postseason. He's not striking out, which is unbelievable.
I think he had a record streak, a personal record
streak by not striking out over the course of the
postseason year. And he's just hammering baseballs. We know he's

(27:58):
got tremendous power, but his swing seems to be in saying.
He's not chasing those sliders off the plate like we
see him do a lot of times. Tell me what
you see from John Carlo Stanton, Joe, because right now
I think the Dodgers have to be really, really concerned
about him. Cleveland got burned twice when they chose not
to walk him. They didn't buy into the fact that

(28:20):
he was this hot, and he burned them both times
with game breaking home runs. I'm not saying the Dodgers
are going to walk him, but they have to look
at John Carlo Stanton now as a red hot hitter
and not just the guy who's going to chase mistakes.

Speaker 4 (28:33):
I think you're going to see the Dodgers come hard
in on him a little bit more often. What I'm
saying is that he's at the point now everything he's
looking at is out over, out over, whether it's a
fastball or breaking ball. Nobody wants to finish him inside.
I think you have to tie him up. You got
to speed him up a little bit to get back
to the to the breaking ball stripe. So that's curiously

(28:54):
what I would look for Initially from the Dodgers. You're
going to see more inside to the point they're not
going to be concerned about hitting him. Possibly you know,
not that you're throwing at people. But point is, you
just got to get in there to the point where
give him something to think about, so then you could
get the part of the plate back that you want,
because that at bat, that home running. The last summer,

(29:14):
the picture's name for the Cleveland Indians.

Speaker 2 (29:16):
I camera oh by Tanner Biby byby yeah.

Speaker 4 (29:19):
Slider, slider. I mean he threw a couple of good
ones down the way, down the way. They're actually balls, good,
good for you, They were good. And then all of
a sudden, when you keep when you keep throwing a
lot of sliders. I've always believe in breaking ball, you're
gonna hang one and he didn't miss it. So I
think that you're going to see more of an attempt
to set him up primarily hard in and I mean in,

(29:41):
and then get him to chase by opening that up,
by speedning his mind up looking at a hard d
and then you might be you might get the chase
back that you're looking for.

Speaker 3 (29:50):
And by the way, you talk about someone who loves
hitting at Dodger Stadium, he has the second highest lucking
percentage in Dodger Stadium in the history. It's over seven hundred.
John Carlos Stanton grew up about sixteen miles from Dodger Stadium.
He went there often as a kid.

Speaker 2 (30:05):
When he was ten.

Speaker 3 (30:06):
Years old, he was out there shagging balls during VP,
and he said he was amazed at how the crowd
would ooh and add all these balls clanging off the
bleacher seats.

Speaker 2 (30:14):
And he turned it. He said to his dad.

Speaker 3 (30:16):
He's ten years old at the time, and he says, Dad,
someday I'm going to hit a ball completely out of
Dodger Stadium. And his dad says, yeah, right, sure, go ahead.
And then it was I think it was twenty fifteen
or so he actually did that hit the ball completely.

Speaker 2 (30:31):
It was a fourth ball ever hit out of Dodger Stadium.

Speaker 3 (30:34):
They played the All Star Game in Dodger Stadium a
couple of years ago. He hits one into those same
bleachers where he sat as a kid. He's the All
Star MVP. You don't think there's something really special going
through his veins when he steps into the box Game
one at Dodger Stadium. The local kid who's had such
a history here and the memories, Oh my goodness. I mean,
John le Carlos Stanton came in red hot anyway, but

(30:56):
in Dodger Stadium, it's a fairy tale come true in
La La Land for John Carlos Stanton.

Speaker 4 (31:02):
Yeah, there's a there's a big everything you're telling.

Speaker 5 (31:04):
I didn't realize all of that.

Speaker 4 (31:05):
I knew about the ball going out of the ballpark.
He didn't know about him and his dad. I didn't
realize was that close to Dodgers Day. And there's a lot.
There's a lot of emotion in there. There's no question,
and while there's emotion, there's also going to be a
calmness about him. I think if you think about where
you sat with your dad in a ballpark years ago,
you talk about the possibly the biggest warm fuzzy you
could conjure up. So it's got to put him in

(31:28):
kind of a rocking chair, I believe, and he's got
to believe that his dad is there all the time
with him, whether it's in the batter's boxer, sitting in
the stands. It's good, it's it's it's going to play
in his favor. There's no question. So regardless of okay,
regardless of what I just saidbout how they're going to
pitch him, but ball still going to go far to
left field when he played at Dodger State, and there's
no question.

Speaker 3 (31:47):
And Joe, I know you love scouting stories, especially the
old guard John Carlos Stanton was a guy who's a
three sport player in high school and Pete Carroll wanted
him as a wide receiver at USC. He averaged twenty
one points of games scoring in basketball.

Speaker 2 (32:03):
And junior year baseball.

Speaker 3 (32:04):
Junior year at Notre Dame High and Sherman Oaks, he
hit basically two hundred hitting out of the seventh spot.

Speaker 2 (32:10):
But he got invited to the Area.

Speaker 3 (32:12):
Code Games the summer between junior and senior years and
during VP. One of your favorite places blair Field, John
Carlos Stanton hits it over the fifty foot tall palm
trees and left field, over an access road and onto
the adjacent golf course. Did that a few times, and
all of a sudden he gets on the radar of
MLB scouts. Now, he didn't do well in the games,

(32:33):
he struck out a ton, but that show he put
on in batting practice opened up a lot of eyes,
especially for the Marlins, who really liked him. But there's
another guy who really liked him, and that was the
old scout, George Genevies, and you know him from Giants
and the Dodgers, just a legend in southern California circles

(32:54):
in baseball, and George love Stanton. He brought him out
to Dodger Stadium, worked him out. He's banging balls off
the bleachers and he's down on the front office. We
need to sign this guy. This is you know, he's
got Dave Kyman kind of power. You know he's going
to be a great home run hitter. And you get
to the draft. The Marlins actually had the twelfth pick
of the draft, and they thought that's probably too soon

(33:16):
to take Stanton because a lot of people saw a
swing and miss. He's not gonna go that early. They
took a third baseman named Matt Dominguez. Didn't have much
of a major league career, but he did get to
the majors. The Dodgers then have two more picks before
the Marlins get to their second round pick, and Georgia's dismayed.
They passed on John Carlos Stanton. It took a couple

(33:37):
of pictures. One was a high school pitcher, Chris Witthrow.
He kicked around for a few years out of the
bullpen for the Dodgers. The other was a pitcher from
the University of Tennessee who never made the major leagues.
Stanton falls to the Marlins at number seventy six. And
you know the stories about John Carlo hitting home runs
at Dodger Stadium. There could have been a lot more

(33:58):
of them. If the Dodgers listened to an old scout
named George Genevies.

Speaker 4 (34:03):
Talking about Wreck golf course recreation golf course in Long Beach.
It's right next to the Billy Jean King Tennis Center
beyond left field. That Blair You're right for those. If
you ever get to Long Beach, just drive on over
to blair Field. If you want to see the essence
of the minor leagues. It's Long Beach State's ballpark now,
but anytime I walked in there, it really reeks of

(34:25):
the coolest minor league ballparks I've ever played in. And
that's the spot that Kenny RIVISI used to take me
to before I would go to spring training to practice
my spring training speech that I'm going to give to
my guys on the Long Beach State dirt bag. God,
I love that place. George Genevies iconic. I mean I

(34:46):
knew him, of course with the Giants early on. I
love these guys. I mean, these old scouts. When they
saw something, they're demonstrative, and he had his comps and
he knew what he saw and I probably, of course
it bothered the Dodgers eventually, but I know it bothered
Georgia a lot. I love those guys. Those guys taught

(35:07):
me so much. They're a big part of why I
was able to do what I did. And I still
contend that if you really want to develop good coaches
and managers in your minor league system, have them scout
first and have them get out there on a free
agent scouting trail in a territory prior to a draft,

(35:28):
and really go through this whole experience, because when you
get to your team in a season, you're going to
be able to make better evaluations on what you're seeing,
because then you have a better base to know what's
what a really good major league player is going to
look like before ever it becomes one.

Speaker 3 (35:45):
Blair Field also is where they filmed a lot of
the scenes for Moneyball. So how much does Moneyball factor
into postseason baseball, especially the World Series. I'm curious to
get Joe's take on how to run World Series games
from the manager's perspective. We'll do that right after we
get back to the Book of Joe. Welcome back to

(36:18):
the World Series edition of the Book of Joe podcast.
Yankees Dodgers probably two of the most talented teams.

Speaker 2 (36:26):
It's a rare matchup.

Speaker 3 (36:27):
I think it's only the third and wild Card era
where we have the two teams with the best records
in each league made it through the minefield of expanded
postseason baseball to give us.

Speaker 2 (36:36):
An Armageddon World Series. So much fun.

Speaker 3 (36:40):
I mentioned Moneyball, and we all love the numbers. In
the fact we talked about Wan Soto hitting high fastballs.
The numbers should convince you never to throw him one,
so no one wants to disregard those. But a couple
of things to keep in mind here. First of all,
the Dodgers are to me they're giving Will Smith, their catcher,
who's really grown into a really good game caller, a

(37:00):
little more leeway, and how they run games. I think,
in talking Dave Roberts, the Dodgers went a lot more
by script in years past, but slowly they've sort of
morphed into more of a combo, a hybrid, if you will,
where Will Smith is not always checking that wristband before
calling a pitch, he's reading hit or a swings and
how they react to certain pictures. And I think the

(37:23):
Dodgers have done a really good job in this postseason
doing that. I think they're more adaptable team. And on
the other side, I think about the advice Joe Tory
gives to Aaron Boone, one of his former players, and
he tells them he told Aaron Boone before this postseason,
don't forget your instincts, especially a guy like Boone, who's
a third generation major league star who's been around the

(37:45):
game since he's had diapers and swinging a with a
ball bet And Tory's point basically was trust what you see,
because why would you run away from all that experience.
It doesn't mean you go off to handle and just
do something on a whim, but it means that you
react to what you see and calling a game and
putting plays on or making pitching decisions.

Speaker 2 (38:03):
And I think you're seeing that with Aaron Boone.

Speaker 3 (38:05):
I think he's done a really good job, especially with
his bullpen decisions in the postseason. My goodness, they closed
out the American League Pennant Joe with Cousins and Kinley
and Weaver and Hill. I mean, these guys were cast
offs from other organizations, so I think I think Boone
didn't need to be reminded of that by Joe, but
he certainly. I thought I said the right hand in

(38:27):
making decisions totally.

Speaker 4 (38:29):
But I always told my guys in the plash before
the games began, was that things are going to go bad.
At some point, They're going to go bad, and at
that particular point, we got to continue to fight through this.

Speaker 5 (38:40):
You have to be fluid. You just have to be fluid.

Speaker 4 (38:43):
You always love to run according to a script, but
the script's going to get blown up at some point.
Theory in reality rarely come together. The one piece of
advice I'd give my guys before we would begin was that,
and we have to be ready for it. We have
to be adaptable. You know, absolutely can never give up.
You never quit on this thing, but understand that it's
not always going to be perfect, and so go into

(39:04):
it knowing that patience.

Speaker 5 (39:07):
There's less patience.

Speaker 4 (39:08):
In this a meaning that as a manager you have
to be somewhat more aggressive, and especially as the games
get deeper, whether you're down two to one, three to one, whatever,
you have to get even more aggressive than that. So
there's a less patient approach to managing the game. And
from a perspective regarding just to remind the resilience that
got you here to begin with, things are going to

(39:29):
go bad and we're going to have to fight through
that final point.

Speaker 5 (39:32):
You brought it up in a bit. You know, we've
talked about this forever.

Speaker 4 (39:36):
Yes you've got to pay attention, and yes you've got
to follow your instincts and your wisdom and your years
of experience. And it's when you just can never run
away from that and after all, that probably the main
reason why you're at that particular position that you are.
And I love the Dodgers permitting their catcher to go
off script once in a while based on what you're

(39:57):
saying one hundred percent, and that speaks to trends and
where the big picture doesn't necessarily always come into lights.
Guys get hot, guys get cold. A judge right now.
Would you ever walk so to to pitch the judge
during the course of the last season, of course not,
but he's cold right now.

Speaker 5 (40:14):
So they did that.

Speaker 4 (40:15):
Follow your trends, what do you see make adjustments? It
just can't be based on math completely and only it's
not infallible. And actually analytics, to me are very They
really are a very fluid method of preparation for a
Major League baseball game. So that's kind of a wide
ranging answer, but those are the kind of things going

(40:36):
into less patient, be prepared for.

Speaker 5 (40:39):
Something to go bad and fight through it.

Speaker 4 (40:40):
And yes, I want you always to bring you to
the table. I don't want you to go out there uptight,
or I don't want you to go up there feeling
you cannot trust or follow your own instincts. If something's
really screaming at you.

Speaker 5 (40:54):
I want that.

Speaker 4 (40:54):
I want you to be a baseball player, and I'll
never want to get in a way of your greatness.

Speaker 3 (40:59):
Now, let's talk about how the managers run these games.
We'll start with Dave Roberts and the Dodger. Listen, he's
in a bit of a pickle again, you know, in
terms of threading the needle here, He's got Yoshinobu Yamamoto,
who has not pitched more than five innings since June seventh.
He's got Walker Buehler, who in his last start lasted

(41:20):
four innings through about ninety pitches and was guessed. He's
got Jack Flaherty, who, in his second start in the
NLCS against the Mets really had to minish stuff. I'm
talking about a fastball down two miles per hour, a
slider had really no bite to it. Kervebaugh did not
have the same kind of break to it. That seemed

(41:40):
to be alarming for a guy who's throwing the most
innings he has in the last five years. That's it,
that's his rotation. He's going to have to plan for
at least one or two bullpen games.

Speaker 2 (41:52):
Again.

Speaker 3 (41:53):
My guess is he probably goes bullpen game for Game
two with the off day on the other side, I
don't think he can go bullpen game Game three three
because that's the first of three straight games. And if
you're wearing out your bullpenning game one, which is game three,
where are you for the next two? So that that's

(42:15):
a tough way to go, Joe. But listen, he threaded
the needle last time. Vessia would come back and be
a good option for help because he can get you
more than three outs. By the way people talk about
Vessia on Soto, no, I.

Speaker 2 (42:29):
Wouldn't do it. You know, his best pitch is the
high fastball, and it's a disappearing one. I get it.

Speaker 3 (42:36):
I'd rather have Graderol with his power sinker or trying it,
of course with his sweeper Vessia just because he's lefty
on Soda, I wouldn't do that. But anyway, that's that's
where I'm at. On Dave Roberts, Joe, I mean, how
do you see how he threads the needle this time?

Speaker 5 (42:52):
Let me ask you this.

Speaker 4 (42:52):
First of all, when it comes down to the roster construction,
is there limits on how many pitchers you could have
and compared to position players or is that not a
rule right now?

Speaker 2 (43:01):
That's a good question. I think it is fourteen.

Speaker 4 (43:04):
Fourteen pitchers, max pitchers the twenty six. So if he
went with three starters, he could basically have eleven relief pictures.

Speaker 5 (43:12):
Yeah, I mean I would. I would look for them
to do something like that.

Speaker 4 (43:15):
I mean because yeah, I watched Flarty, uh and I
love this guy with the Cardinals. I thought he was
such a great athlete too, But the thing that happened
to him eventually that to his demise, there was the
command of everything. The guy's tremendous. Guy could hit, he
could run, you could do all those kinds of things.
But I'd really be concerned about that and the other

(43:36):
guys like you're talking about, coming off an injury and
just not stretched out to the point that they need
to be. So I would really watch for them to
go heavy, heavy, extra arms and not really be concerned
about starting pitchers. You might see a completely different breakdown
in regards to how you set up your particular team.
Pinch any wise, who do they pinch it for?

Speaker 5 (43:57):
I don't think they do.

Speaker 4 (43:58):
Really do they pinch it a whole lot, if at all.

Speaker 2 (44:00):
Yeah, they would pinch it for the bottom of the lineup.
Pinch it for Chris Taylor if he's in there against them.

Speaker 5 (44:04):
Okay, that's one.

Speaker 2 (44:05):
That's one, not a whole lot, though, You're right.

Speaker 4 (44:09):
Yeah, I mean I think they did needed the extra catcher,
of course, and they were just really pinpoint exactly who
they might pinch it for. But you might just see
literally eleven relief pitchers on this team. If you're in fact,
you could go fourteen, and that would be their way
to circumvent all this and really give you the possibly

(44:29):
back to back bullpen games.

Speaker 3 (44:31):
Well, I mean you're talking about a team the last
round again, they had twenty and one third innings from
their starters in six games, three in the third innings, right,
I mean you've got a bullpen that's been picking up
basically two thirds of the game for you. I mean
you listen, you won a series in six games doing that.
Now you have to do it again against the deeper
Yankees lineup.

Speaker 2 (44:51):
That that's a challenge to me.

Speaker 3 (44:53):
So if they've got ves yet, they've got Graderol who
wasn't pitched in forever, so we don't even know what
you know his condition would be.

Speaker 2 (45:00):
But I agree with you You're going to have.

Speaker 3 (45:02):
To just have waves and waves of relief pitchers to
keep these in check, these games of check.

Speaker 2 (45:06):
If you're if you're Dave Roberts.

Speaker 4 (45:08):
Yeah, the Marquee matchup's not going to exist in this series.
It's not Waity Ford versus you know, don Newcome whatever
it's there, You're not going to get that Sandy versus
whomever in the for the Yankees, male stodom are at
that particular time. So it's going to be suspend everything
you've always believed in with starting pitchers right now in
this series, at least from the Dodgers side of things,

(45:29):
the Yankees are in a little bit better shape, especially
if Cortes as well and he's able to throw up
to his standards. I mean that that's a big get
for them. But I think you're going to see something
completely off the wall from the Dodgers right now. I
don't know that they could comfortably feel confident about any
of those guys you just talked about, except my Moto.
Maybe you know, he doing five, maybe even six if

(45:49):
the guy's on. I mean, he showed some he showed
some decent stuff the last time I watched them. But
the other guys, it's hard to imagine. So you're going
to see a bunch of relievers and relievers that they're
going to stretch out a little bit more like the
just one one in the third. They're gonna look for
the two any guys here and that guy's got a
bit deeper farther. If in fact there cruising and they

(46:12):
look kind of good, they're gonna need, like you said,
they're gonna need strike throws there. Their whole process is
gonna have to be around people that they believe can
get hitters out within the strike zone. That's gonna be
a big part of the conversation. If they have to
rely on any of these relief pitchers to be chase
kind of guys, they're not. They're gonna shy away from them,
unless they're just gonna look at maybe one guy, maybe

(46:32):
one real long guy, the guy that's just gonna suck
it up, get his brains beaten out to save everybody else.

Speaker 5 (46:37):
Are gonna have to consider that too.

Speaker 4 (46:39):
But I think you're gonna see a heavily laden bullpen
structure to the Dodgers' roster.

Speaker 2 (46:45):
Yeah, the key for.

Speaker 3 (46:46):
Me is Dave Roberts drops into start game three. First
of all, it's a tough assignment. Game three, you know,
first World Series game at Yankee Stadium since two thousand
and nine. Listen to Dodgers playing their pressure all the time.
I get that, but there's something different.

Speaker 2 (47:00):
You know this Joe.

Speaker 3 (47:01):
About going into the ballpark in the Bronx in that situation.
But it's also key because you can't really have Yamamoto
there because he needs at least five usually six days
of rest. So he's not really an option for seven.
If you start him in three, you know you've got
Flaherty and Walker Buehler. He needs somebody who can come
back just in case you get to seven. That can't

(47:25):
be a bullpen game, as I said, So he's really
hamstrong with the amount of options that he has. Maybe
he goes Yamamoto in in game two bullpen one. I
don't know, but he's got to figure this out because
he's limited with Yamamoto can't come back on the fifth day,
doesn't give you a lot of length anyway, has to
have some bullpen games with some room either before or after.

Speaker 2 (47:48):
It's a tricky situation for Dave.

Speaker 4 (47:50):
I see, I could easily see them going bullpen first
game no question. That does not even and I'll even
say this, if the bullpen goes good in the first
game and they have planning left over in the second game,
you might see it back to back. I think they're
going to be very fluid with this. They're going to
go that direction. I just if I'm them to just
try to in advance because they don't want to get

(48:12):
behind in these games either. So if you're going to
start one of these starters that they don't feel really
good about and you're going to work into a deficit,
I hate. One of my most things I lowered the
most is to use good bullpen arms in a big
deficit or in a deficit situation. It really bothered me,
always has, always will.

Speaker 2 (48:29):
So you won't see the Dodgers doing that.

Speaker 4 (48:31):
We know that, but I'm just saying, so you may see.
You may see bullpen first game. Yeah, Okay, if they
win that, then maybe you'll see an actual starter. But
if you're to lose that, you might see bullpen again.

Speaker 5 (48:42):
I'm it's just this thing is wide open.

Speaker 4 (48:44):
They'll reveal there.

Speaker 5 (48:45):
They're going to be.

Speaker 4 (48:46):
Tied to the best of the very end, but it
would not surprise me.

Speaker 3 (48:49):
Yeah, I can see that, Joe, Because if you pitch
Yamamoto in game two, right then he gets five days
arrest before six two off days and three games in between,
and that's his schedule.

Speaker 2 (49:01):
If you pitch them in one, then he's line up
for five.

Speaker 3 (49:04):
That's not his schedule. He doesn't have enough rest at
that point. So that's a possibility.

Speaker 5 (49:09):
I bet on it. I do.

Speaker 4 (49:11):
I don't think that they're very comfortable with doing all
of that. They just clinched by doing it, so this
is it's part of their structure right now. It would
not surprise me in the least, and I think that's
their best opportunity to get the upper hand.

Speaker 3 (49:27):
And if you're Aaron Boone, you know I've talked a
lot with Dave Roberts this postseason about the law of exposure,
if you will. As the series goes on, the more
teams see a relief pitcher, especially the more the balance
swings in favor of the hitter, you kind of lose
that edge that a relief picture has by just facing
a guy once in a while. You've seen this before,

(49:48):
you guys did it to Andrew Miller in twenty sixteen. Joe,
it seems to be a thing. The Yankees don't seem
to be as bothered by that, because they kept matching
up play Homes and Luke Weaver and whatnot against the
middle of the Cleveland lineup. I don't think Aaron Boone
is going to deviate from. But what do you see
the keys for Aaron Boone as far as running these
games against the Dodgers.

Speaker 4 (50:10):
I mean, honestly, it's I would try to extract as
much as I can out of.

Speaker 5 (50:13):
My starters, number one.

Speaker 4 (50:17):
I still believe that's the tried and true best way
to go about this. If you could, these guys can
get you into the fifth and the sixth inning. That
just automatically makes your bullpen better and then then also permits.

Speaker 5 (50:26):
You to really match up the way.

Speaker 3 (50:28):
Yeah, that's your edge over the Dodgers, right, exactly outlast
them and don't expose your bullpen as much.

Speaker 4 (50:34):
Right, that's to me the way that they have to
want to go about this that requires some patience, requires
some good efforts by their starting pitching, of course, which
they have, and they can do those kinds of things.
So I would really find boonie. Of course, it doesn't
always work that way, but you're looking for that and
try to be as patient as you can with your starters,
because that starters pitching more deeply into games automatically make

(50:56):
for better bullpens.

Speaker 2 (50:58):
And how do you see the Yankees offense here?

Speaker 3 (51:00):
We know that they're a quick strike team, right Joe,
it's the whole run ball is huge for them. And
it's interesting that we have these two teams with so
much power. They do strike out a lot, both teams.
You know, we talked a lot during the year and
actually the last couple of years about playing postseason baseball,
But in this case, it really is true that nothing
decides games more than hitting a second home run in

(51:21):
a game.

Speaker 2 (51:21):
Team is gonna win about seventy.

Speaker 3 (51:23):
Percent of the time when they hit that second home run.
And the Yankees are not a great situational team. They're
not a great base running team, let's face it.

Speaker 2 (51:31):
But the big eraser, the great barrel of white out
that they have is the home run ball.

Speaker 3 (51:36):
So do you think that that continues to play against
the Dodgers in terms of relying on the home run
ball to win games or they're going to have to
do some situational hitting better.

Speaker 4 (51:46):
I think it's gonna be more difficult especially you know,
if the Dodgers have all these great arms coming one
after another, it's going to be harder to square them up.
I think I also believe, weirdly that Glaboratorus is a
big key to this whole thing. This guy's been fabulous
in the leadoff hole, just getting on base, setting tone,
providing confidence for the rest of the lineup. I can't
be underestimated. You know, we were talking about that earlier
this year, about how Volpi was doing that, and all

(52:09):
of a sudden, it's Gliber has been this godsend regarding
getting on base and then just setting a different mindseter
tone to the opposition. You're right, they're bad at base running.
They're not even not good.

Speaker 5 (52:19):
They're bad.

Speaker 4 (52:20):
They make a lot of really bad choices. But that's
I mean, who knows how much time they spend with that,
how much they really care about it. It's really surprising.
But that's one thing I have horror is bad base running.
So anyhow, I think Gliber has a lot to do
with this how he continues to get on base and
set table and create a positive.

Speaker 5 (52:38):
Vibe down the lineup.

Speaker 4 (52:39):
But I think the home run is going to be
a little bit more difficult up and down the lineup
for the Yankees, just based on you know, the bullpen arms. Now,
they will hit their homers against Flarerty and they're going
to hit their home runs against Builder. I just these
guys are off right now.

Speaker 5 (52:53):
They're going to make mistakes.

Speaker 4 (52:55):
But the bullpen guy's going to be tough because they're
always going to be seeing different guys presenting differently to them.
So I can't say that they're going to just turn
into a situation team. I think Rizzo provides some of
that example on how to do this, because Rizz has
been really doing that well. He's just been just trying
to shoot the ball to the left side taking his
base hit and that could be impactful and contagious also.

(53:19):
But I don't think you're going to see the prolific
home run necessarily against Dodger arms when they keep marching
them out of the bullpen. But I do think they
could up on the starters early.

Speaker 3 (53:29):
Should be a great series, Joe, I don't know who
you like in this series. To me, it definitely looks
like a log series. I can easily see either one
of these teams winning this series. The Yankees with their power,
I will say that Dodgers probably have more paths to
victory offensively than do the Yankees. They're a better base
running team, they're a better situational hitting team. But again,

(53:51):
that Yankee power can just change everything. I'd be a
little bit concerned about how the Dodgers get through these
first two games in terms of bullpen usage really set
up the series for Dave Roberts. Beyond that, they do
have home field advantage. They did that with the best
record of baseball. They went the last five games down
the stretch and that's why we're starting and probably finishing
at Dodger Stadium.

Speaker 2 (54:13):
So if there is any edge in this.

Speaker 3 (54:15):
Series, and I know when the postseason, the home field
vte doesn't mean a whole lot, but when you get
to six and seven and you don't have to defend
the lead scoring last, I think that is an advantage.
I'd give a slight edge to the LA Dodgers.

Speaker 4 (54:29):
What do you think, Yeah, it's like you said, it's
that close.

Speaker 5 (54:33):
I don't know. I mean, I'm even thinking about airplane
rides right now.

Speaker 4 (54:37):
You know the fact that it starts in LA, goes
back easton, comes back, they.

Speaker 5 (54:40):
Come back to their own time zone.

Speaker 4 (54:43):
It's kind of funky when you start going back and
forth like that. It's a long ride, and I know
it's first class, and I know it's you know, it's
a charter plan. I get all that, but there's a
certain amount of fatigue that sits in with that too.

Speaker 5 (54:55):
We may even talked about defense.

Speaker 4 (54:57):
I mean defensively catching the baseball is going to be
obviously really big. Not giving the other side extra outs,
walking hitters is going to be really big in this
series also, But I can't disagree. I think overarching, the
Dodgers have a nice thing going on right now.

Speaker 5 (55:12):
They look really good.

Speaker 4 (55:13):
I think they possibly have less holes overall than the
Yankees do. But again, man, I'm not betting on this series.
I don't bet at all anyway, but if I had
to pick one, I probably have to go with the Dodgers.

Speaker 3 (55:25):
Yeah you sound like me though, Like you can go
either way, right I don't feel strongly about the Dodgers,
And I think what I like about this series Joe
is and we started off talking about this. We've got
some of the best players in the game on the
biggest stage, and we've seen Solo in the World Series
and he has absolutely crushed it. But now we get
to see Otani and Judge, and I really do think

(55:49):
to oversimplify things that how they respond will have a
lot to do with how this series plays out. And
I would not bet against either one of them going
off and just having an MVP kind of a world series,
because they've wanted this moment for their lives, for the
whole lives.

Speaker 2 (56:04):
They have responded to big moments in the past.

Speaker 3 (56:08):
I'd just like to see these great series decided by
great players. And it would surprise me if either show
Hey or Judge or the MVP of this world series.

Speaker 4 (56:16):
Yeah, they're all jacked up, They're ready to go. There's
plenty of rest between this last game and the first
game of the series. They're kind of on top of
their games right now. The big thing to is Freeman.
You know, Freddie's going to be well or not with
his ankle. How that really plays out, because a well
Freeman Freddie Freeman is a big difference maker. I think
Rizzo is going to feel better after a couple of

(56:37):
days off with his hand, but really Freddie being able
to play and playing comfortably without having to constantly think
about his ankle could be a big difference maker also
in a positive way for the Dodgers.

Speaker 5 (56:49):
So we'll see.

Speaker 4 (56:50):
But it is, it's a toss up. It's gonna be interesting,
It's great for baseball, and I'm really happy to see
this particular series for all those different reasons. You've already
alluded to that, So it's going to be fascinating the viewership.

Speaker 5 (57:02):
I'm really curious to see the viewers.

Speaker 3 (57:04):
Well, the two biggest World series in the last generate
this last generation is a twenty five thirty years is
your World Series in twenty sixteen and the Boston Red
Sox ending their curse in two thousand and four. I'd
be curious to see if this one gets beyond those two.
I think it's got a really good chance of doing that.
It's the first World Series, by the way, in which

(57:25):
we have a fifty home run hitter on each side.
We had one where it was on the same side
with Maris and Mammal back in sixty one. But the
biggest stars in the game are here on the biggest stage.

Speaker 2 (57:38):
Can't wait for.

Speaker 5 (57:38):
It, agreed, Man, that's gonna be us saying.

Speaker 3 (57:40):
Joe, you've got something to take us out here. I
do on this World Series edition of the Book of Joe.

Speaker 4 (57:46):
Well, actually I went to the Book of Joe for
this one.

Speaker 2 (57:49):
I love it. Yeah, I did.

Speaker 4 (57:51):
Coach Moore, Tom Moore right now, he's presently with the Bucks.

Speaker 2 (57:54):
Oh yeah.

Speaker 4 (57:54):
Coach Moore and I became friends a couple of years ago.
Came to the Wrigley Field, brought his son, stood with
them behind home plate. Coach Moores to do with the
glasses down on the tip of his nose is to
mentor Manning and Brady and all these guys. But he
laid this nugget on me a couple of years ago,
and I used it with my team since he gave
it to me. But you break, the other teams will

(58:17):
through the relentless execution of fundamentals. We're just talking about
the lack of fundamentals on the Yankee side when it
comes to outcomes to offense, maybe situational hitting, and we're
giving a little bit of a fundamental edge to the
Dodgers overall. That always sticks with me. And listen, I'm
a fundamentalist when it comes to the game of baseball,
always have been.

Speaker 5 (58:36):
My roots are.

Speaker 4 (58:37):
I'm from the East Coast, but my baseball roots are
West Coast. I grew up as a California Angel, was
mentored by so many great coaches, and these guys were
really conservative baseball minds, and I'm so appreciative of that.
So the relentless execution of fundamentals. Final point, Pressure is
defined individually. Everybody's talking about pressure and expectations. Right now,

(58:58):
we've talked about this. Pressure is defined individually. Is a
motivator I believe. It is a positive I believe, and
it is attractive and you should want to be around it.
So you know, you can hear a lot the word pressure,
utilize a lot when talking to these teams.

Speaker 5 (59:14):
Are about these teams.

Speaker 4 (59:15):
It's an absolute positive and it's good, good for them,
belly for them. And when it comes down to it,
the team that executes more consistently fundamentally because it's so close,
should win the series.

Speaker 3 (59:26):
I love that, as you know, the great ones regard
pressure as a privilege.

Speaker 2 (59:30):
They want it, yep, and they thrive in it. And
we'll see who does a lot of fun Joe. We'll
look forward to it. We will check back in during
the course of this world series. It should be epic.

Speaker 5 (59:41):
Have fun, Tommy, talk to you soon.

Speaker 1 (59:50):
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