Fair Territory: B2B Dodgers, Blue Jays fall short, Manager market

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Speaker 1: Welcome to everyone to the normal edition, the normal Monday edition of Fair Territory. We are back home, as you can see here. No more housekeepers barging into the room, no more telephones ringing off the hook. And no I couldn't get up in the middle of the show to get the phone off the hook. Okay, I saw all the comments. I see everything booths. We're gonna do a World Series recap. We're gonna talk about my favorite World Series of all time. I might not be in my best voice coming off a month on the road and cross country stuff, but hey, we're gonna do it. We're gonna recap the World Series, not necessarily in a traditional way where you go game by game, but kind of talking about each team. And that's what I want to do. To start with the lead today, talk about each team, where they are, what they accomplished, and where they go from here. And I'm gonna start with the Blue Jays. And obviously, if you're a fan of the game, even if you're a fan of the Dodgers, feel for the Blue Jays and you can understand the heartbreak that they experienced after what was coming to be or what was looking to be their first World Series title since nineteen ninety three. They had a three to nothing lead in the third inning on the Baschette home run. In Game seven, they had a lead with two outs to go in the ninth, a one run lead, and yet they did not win. They lose Game seven in eleven innings. Of course, we all know how it turned out, and you saw perhaps afterwards, the reports from the Blue Jays clubhouse how the players were crushed. Ernie Clement talking about how he had cried for an hour. Max Schurz is saying that he's forty one and he never thought he could love baseball this much. That, as you could see even from watching the games, was an unusually close team, a team that came together in a way that previous Blue Jays teams had not, a team that achieved things that previous Blue Jays teams had not, and a team that, yes, was so close. In fact, I got a text from a friend of mine who works for the Blue Jays after Game seven, shortly after, and he said, Hey, no team has ever come this close to winning a World Series. I'm shattered, and you can understand that, and you can certainly understand the sentiments of everyone involved I even saw a post on x a collection of tweets from some of the wives and girlfriends of the Blue Jays saying how special this whole experience had been, how close everyone had gotten it was and will remain in the memory of those who root for that team. A special team didn't end up winning the championship, but still special. Now, the Blue Jays were gallant in this series, nothing short of that. They were inspiring with the way they played, and you can make the case that they were the better team now. Caleb Joseph, the former catcher who now works for Roger Sports, then had that comment that got some blowback, but I understood where he was coming from. He said, it's going to sound like sour grapes, but I think the better team did not win this series. Now, yes, people are gonna jump on that, and Kiyo Hernandez had a cute response to that. But the bottom line is this. While the Dodgers won the series, they were outscored thirty four to twenty six. The Blue Jays out hit them two sixty nine to two oh three. They all played them in most of the games. They didn't win. At baseball, That's what happens sometimes and of course Yoshinobu Yamamoto was the great equalizer, wins in three of the games, Game two, Game six, and then of course the incredible performance in Game seven on zero day's rest. He was on hours rest, not day's rest. So an impressive performance by the Blue Jays. And I say this all the time, and I say it especially if to Yankee fans who complained about no titles since two thousand and nine, as if a World Series title is their birthright. It is so hard to win. It is so hard to win a World Series. It's so hard to win a baseball game, period, a major League game. Managers will say that all the time. It's hard to win a major League game. Only one of the thirty clubs ends up as a champion. We know that, and in this particular case, the Blue Jays were up against the team that was really good, and a team I'll get to in a second. And yes, for Blue Jays fans, for people who wanted to see the Dodgers lose, it's easy to bemoan the missed opportunities. Jeff Hoffman giving up the home run to rojas ikf not getting a big enough lead off third base. We can debate whether he should have had a bigger lead. I'll trust whit Merrifield, who tweeted basically that he did the right thing. You don't want to get doubled off there or backpicked there. Whatever. We can debate all this, but no game is ever decided by one thing, by one umpire's call, by one play, by one anything. The Blue Jays in the last two games went four for twenty six with runners in scoring position hit any in those situations. And maybe this is a whole different story. So for the Blue Jays, obviously you understand why the players are upset and why they feel the way they do. And you know, also when you were a team in Major League Baseball, the roster in one year is not going to look the same as the next year. The twenty twenty six Blue Jays will not look the same as the twenty twenty five Blue Jays. We know this. Bobashet is a free agent. Possible they could resign him at second base, I guess possible if he wants to do that, Not sure he does. Max Scherzer free agent, Chris Bassett free agent. One of the beautiful things about this team was the mixture of veterans like Schrzer and Bassett, and youngsters like Treya Savage and everything in between. Some guys like Ernie Clement, who had been released by other teams. Nathan Lucas, a guy who also had gone through a lot ten years in the minor leagues, thought about retiring all these great stories, and they all came together from different parts of the baseball universe and formed this extremely appealing and competitive team. It will not be easy for them next year. We know that they play in perhaps the game's most competitive division, the Al East, and again it will be a different look for their roster. But the Blue Jays, in my mind, should be nothing but proud all right. Now, onto the World Series champions, the Dodgers. I was critical of them in The Athletic after Game five, when they went down three games to two, I wrote about their deficiencies, offensive deficiencies, defensive deficiencies, bullpen. They did not look good, and really, in many instances this season they did not look good. They had stretches where they did not hit, including in the World Series, actually including the final three rounds of the playoffs. They had stretches where, of course they had players out with injuries, more injured days lists or more days on the injured list than any team this year. They had kind of a struggle for a team that was expected or thought perhaps to win one ten, one hundred and twenty games. They won ninety three, didn't have home field advantage for the series because the J's won ninety four. So the Dodgers were obviously a team that we all expected to be good, but they do have at this point a position player group that is aging. And when you watch this series, a reasonable person could have concluded that the J's were the better team. Now didn't end up that way. They didn't win the series, and that's because the Dodgers showed something, particularly in Game seven, but also in Game six, in coming back the way they did in those two games that championship teams show. And they are the back to back World Series champions first time since the ninety eight to two thousand Yankees. For a reason, what they did in winning the final two games on the road was pretty rare in World Series history. It's happened thirty three times, I'm sorry thirty two times now where a team was down three to two going on the road in a best of seven World Series only nine times, nine out of thirty two have those teams one and the Dodgers became the ninth with what they did in Game seven. In Game seven, Let's face it was their tour de force, and Yamamoto played a huge role, of course in all this. They don't win the World Series without him, okay, but Game seven featured so much To really recommend the Dodgers, I guess would be kind of a bad phrase, but you know what I'm saying, so much that showed you who they were. Home runs in the eighth, the ninth, and the eleventh inning, four starting pitchers contributing all of them on short rest to some degree or no rest in Yamamoto's case, guys like Miguel Rojas stepping up, Justin Robeleski and Emma she and two younger pitchers stepping up. They got contributions in the World Series from all over the place. So for all the money they spent, you see the bullpen and what they did in the final game. Actually I shouldn't call it the bullpen. It was kind of like the starter's turned relievers, including Shan for that matter, and what they accomplished in this game Yamamoto. My gosh, two to two thirds scoreless innings. It was just brilliant. It was a tour de force. Honestly, a classic example of if you're going to knock off the champ, you better knock them out. And the Blue Jays didn't. They didn't knock them out. The Dodgers obviously prevailed. Now, as we've discussed on the show many times, lots of people complain about the Dodgers. Lots of people say, well, when you spend nearly four hundred million, you should win. And I understand the argument. We've talked about that, and we've talked about how the disparity between the big money teams and the lesser revenue teams in baseball is an enduring problem for the sport. We may disagree about how to solve it. I don't know that anyone can say it's something that should not be addressed. It should be addressed in a better way, or more meaningful way than it is now. This has been an issue for a long time. It goes back to the Yankees in the fifties, for heaven's sake, and we'll see in the next labor negotiations how this all plays out. But for all that, and this is what I wrote after Game seven, you have to admire what the Dodgers accomplished, the sacrifices their players made, particularly in Game seven, the guy's pitching on short rest, Rojas, who had been benched for the first five games, coming out in Game six and then seven, doing what he did. You have to admire what they did as a team and the commitment to winning that the players showed, and for that matter, the commitment to winning that their front office and ownership showed as well. The manager, Dave Roberts, remember early in his postseason career, frequently came under scrutiny. This was perhaps his finest hour, going to Rojas in Game six, dropping Mookie Betts to the number four spot, moving Will Smith up to the number two spot. All of these things seemed to work out. His pitching decisions seemed to work out as well. Yes, he had expensive starting pitchers in his arsenal for Game seven, but those guys got the job done. And again you have to admire what they are accomplishing, what they have scomplished, and just kind of what they built there. I know they spend all the money they do so to the Mets, so to the Yankees, so to the Phillies. Blue Jays were fifth in payroll. Lots of teams spend money, the Dodgers not only spend money. They have maybe the best farm system or one of them. They do well internationally. They figure things out as far as just beyond even spending money on big time players will climb. That's a guy they picked up. They have these guys that they kind of figure into the mixed and then they get the most out of them. This is why they win championships. And I dare to say even if we were in a salary cap era, they'd still be winning championships because they are. Arguably, and other teams will tell you this. The team that runs the best, the team that is run the best. They runs most efficiently, most intelligently. They just do things correctly. All right. That's the World Series. We're gonna have more. I'm gonna tell you where I rank this World Series among my personal top five. But I also want to get into the remaining managerial openings. We've got the padres still open. Remember that has not been filled yet. Albert Pooholes and Ruben Diebola reportedly the finalist there pool Holes. Of course, the great Hall of Famer Ruben diebla pitching coach with the padres and a guy who is well respected. That would be an interesting choice, right, pool Holes is here Diabolas here are two different kinds of guys. Then you have the braves and the rumor. With the braves not rumor, but it's been reported that they've been waiting on Danny Lehman, the Dodgers bench coach, and we'll see if that happens. Alexanthopolis, when things are written with him as president of Baseball Operations, rarely do they come true. Usually he's got something else cooking. But we'll see if they hied Danny Leman. We've seen some unorthodox hires here, Tony Vaidello in San Francisco, Blake Ptera in Washington. Leman would be an unorthodox hire too. He's coached, but would he be able to command that room in Atlanta. I'm not sure. It didn't play in the majors or anything like that. So I'll have more to say after this hire process is over about just what I think of what's going on. I kind of said it the other day, the fact that Brandon Hyde and David ross are not even getting sniffs here. That bothers me. I don't think that's right. So we have those two jobs open in San Diego and Atlanta. We have another job open as well in Colorado. We're still waiting for the Rockies to name their president of Baseball Operations. And guys, it's November three. Yea might want to get going on this. The GM meetings are next week. You kind of need to have a clue here. Put someone in place, all right. We'll talk more about that as well. But coming up in the inside dish my Top five World series.

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Speaker 1: Well, Will Well, Today, I want to talk about my top five World series since I became a baseball writer. I became a baseball writer in nineteen eighty seven, so this is a long time. Obviously, not as long as some of the younger writers on The Athletic would say when they joke that I've covered the World Series in nineteen oh three, and I'm right, no, no, no, none of that. But I have covered a lot of world series and I do have a top five, and I want to get into where twenty twenty five ranks in that top five. It certainly is in there, is it the top Well, we're all guilty of recency bias, right, So I want to be try or I want to try to be as fair as possible here in ranking my top five. So number five, I will start with twenty eleven, the Cardinals defeating the Rangers. Now, this was a memorable World Series, in large part because Game six was one of the great games of all time, ending on the Dave David Freeze walk off. The Texas Rangers were in much the same position the Blue Jays were the other night, and they didn't get it done. And there were two one run games in this series. That's not that many. Some of the games weren't very close, but Game six was an all time classic. So that's why I've got twenty eleven as my number five. Seven games series. All the series that I'm going to mention here went seven games, So twenty eleven that ranks as number five. As we go up the list, what's next. Oh, some people might say, twenty sixteen's only number four. Well, I'll tell you why, and you'll see why as I go forward in this list. Now, this obviously, from a standpoint of historical impact, twenty sixteen was certainly higher than number four. In my career, the Cubs won the World Series for the first time since nineteen oh eight. The Indians at the time called the Indians were trying to win one for the first time since nineteen forty eight. The Cubs went back to Cleveland down three games to two, just as the Dodgers did against the Blue Jays here. And I'll never forget interviewing Jason Kipness of the Indians that time on the field after Game five. Remember the Guardians were up, Indians were up three games to two, and I say, hey, man, you're close. Actually they were up three games to one at this point. I believe they won. The Cubs won the final three games, and I said to Kipnis, you need one win to win the World Series, and he kind of teared up, stand down on the field at Wrigley And it didn't happen. The Cubs won the final three games, and obviously Game seven was an all timer, and we had the rain delay and all the different things that happened in that game. There were three one run games in that series, including Game seven. You remember the Raji Davis game tying two run homer of Roldist Chapman in the eighth inning. You remember it going to extra innings, the rain delay, the Jason Hayward speech, all of it. It was amazing and it's still only number four for me, number three on my all time top five list all times dating back to nineteen eighty seven. Yep, Dodgers over Blue Jays. This World Series, in this World Series obviously was really good. Now, there were only two one run games. Both of the extra inning games were run run the others not all of them were that competitive, though most were competitive into the later innings. What made this series so memorable for me, and maybe why it should even rank higher, are the memorable performances, the historic performances we saw. And I'm talking about what Otani on base nine times in Game three. I'm talking about Yasavage's twelve strikeouts in Game five, a record for a rookie in the World Series. Vladimir Guerrero unbelievable postseason in general, three ninety seven batting average in the postseason, a no ps of nearly thirteen hundred, brilliant defense, great base running. He became a different level of star in this World Series and in this postseason. Ernie Clement finishing the postseason with thirty hits was brilliant right through the World Series. Bobashd playing through the discomfort that he did with his knee, George Springer playing after seemingly being out for this series, all of these different things that happened, the Rojas, Homer, and of course Yamamotos So that, to me is what made this series so memorable. The games were good, don't get me wrong, really good, and Game seven was ridiculously good. But the performances, the individual performances, elevated it for me, even to a higher level. So why isn't it number two or number one? I'm going to tell you why number two? What do we got two thousand and one Diamondbacks over the Yankees. Now I know some of you might not have been around back then, but let me refresh you, young ones. That World Series was played coming off nine to eleven, so there was an extra emotional element to it. The country was still grieving and healing coming off nine to eleven. It was only a month or so later when the Yankees hosted the World Series, and for the first time, actually, people outside of New York might have been rooting for the Yankees because they empathized with what was going on in New York trying to rebuild and all of that. This World Series, though, also was one of the most competitive and compelling ever. Now the Yankees went down to nothing in Arizona. They were trailing this World Series to nothing. They go back to New York. They win three straight one run games, two in extra innings. This was the time when Jeter hit the hole running Game four to become mister November. Young Young Kim for the Arizona Diamondbacks struggled. We all remember him struggling. And then it went back to Arizona with the Yankees up three games to two and the Diamondbacks needing to win both games at home to do it. They win Game six. That was a route, but Game seven was an all timer. Of course, Luis Gonzales the hit off Marianna Rivera, the end of the Yankee dynasty. They had won three straight World Series, and this World Series because of all those things I mentioned, just was elevated to a higher level. It was really cool, and it was really emotional, and Randy Johnson of course did what Yamamoto did Game six starter Game seven in relief. All these things came into play and it was great. So why isn't that number one? It's not number one because I've got another one and the other one is oh, nineteen ninety one Twins defeat the Braves four to three. People don't even remember this one because a lot of them weren't born. I get it. In this particular world series, they were five one run games out of seven five to one run games, including game seven one nothing Smoltz versus Morris. Smoltz went seven, and the third scoreless Morris went ten scoreless. It was decided on a Jane Larkin single. If you don't believe me on how great a world series this was, go look it up. Look up the recaps. I could not wait to get to the ballpark every day to cover that world series. The games were that fascinating, that compelling. So there are my top five. I've got twenty twenty five at number three. You might disagree, I understand that, but that's how I saw it.

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Speaker 1: All right, time now for grilling Ken The part of the show where I take your questions. I've been long, so we don't have that much time. But let's go. First question. It comes from Michael Pickering sixteen forty three, who asks Cody Bellinger back to the Dodgers. Interesting question. There's been a lot of talk already of the Dodgers signing Kyle Tucker. Well, Cody Bellinger is a really good player, a left handed hitter like Tucker. He's gonna cost a lot less, So why not Cody Bellinger back to the Dodgers. That's a good one. I don't know. I haven't thought much about it. They're going to do something. They're gonna sign another bat, and it's going to be a younger player, and Bellinger and Kyle Tucker both qualify in terms of free agents as younger players. They're about around twenty nine, if I don't if I'm not mistaken. So that's an interesting one, something to watch for sure. I don't know how it ended there with Bellinger. I don't know what they think of him. Maybe they think differently of him now, maybe he thinks differently of them, and who knows, But that's an interesting question. All right, let's go to the next one. Martha Brennan asked for outther Time is undefeated, so what do you expect the market for Alonzo to be? Martha, that's a good one too. Now, Father Time is undefeated, and that's the reason the Mets are going to be reluctant to extend or to sign Alonzo into his mid and late thirties. This was the problem last offseason as well. But Alonzo is an extremely productive player coming off a great year, and I expect he's going to do better than he did last year with no qualifying offer. Will it be the Mets? I'm not sure it will be the Mets. I have never gotten the impression their President Baseball Operations, David Stearns, wants Alonso long term. But we'll see how free agency goes. It seems to me teams like Boston and others will be more interested in Alonzo this time around, teams that need power badly. All right, let's go. I think we have one more question. Should Kyle Tucker's health history be a factor in free agency? That comes from Henry? Thus, this is something I've thought about Henry the last two years. Tucker has been injured and missed some time, struggled because he was having physical difficulties. I don't know that these injuries are necessarily chronic. One was I believe what a heel. They're kind of fluky things. So I don't really expect him to be looked at as an injury prone player. He's a guy who's kind of durable before all this. But certainly this could come into play. I would think that some teams are gonna maybe have a little bit of a pause because of the last two years. I'm just not sure they should. All Right, one more question before we go. Let's see we've got what y'all think the Yankees might do. As far as Kyle Tucker's schooble in the shortstop position, Robin Soto, they're not gonna get all of them. Maybe they'll bid for Tucker, although I don't really see that necessarily happening. Well, they trade for school, I don't know that they'll give the Tigers what they want. And shortstop, that's gonna be interesting. They've got Caballio. They can use him until Vulpi comes off the surgery. But at the same time, Vulpi long term is a question. All right, before we go, I want to say one more thing. You might have noticed this. On our broadcast, we thanked our longtime producer of twenty two years at Fox Sports, Pete Maccheska, for his service. He is now going to do just football, not baseball. It's his choice. He's going out on top. This guy was the man who was the producer when I first came aboard in two thousand and six. He's been incredibly good to me. He's been incredible as a producer, as a leader for our team. So I thank Pete and we'll be back Thursday our normal show and will be live. They'll be live at twelve thirty Eastern, nine thirty fifth and perhaps by boys back up Bull Friends. A great week, everyone,