Fair Territory: Postseason time! Wild Card series previews, Managers on hot seats, Mets meltdown

00:00:01
Speaker 1: All right, folks, the regular season is over. It is time for Fair Territory, the postseason edition. We're going to preview all four series as we go into the show today. Then we're going to talk about the managers who might be in trouble, what might be going on in the next couple of days. I expect a good amount of action, But first, let's look at the playoff series. Let's go one by one. We'll start with the American League. We'll start with the big one, the rivalry, the Red Sox and the Yankees, two focal points of this series. As you see the matchups right there, Aaron Judge will be one, Garrett Crochet will be the other, and of course they've had some memorable matchups already this season. In the regular season. Crochet has not lost to the Yankees this year four starts. He's been mostly brilliant against them, and Judge has had his difficulties against Crochet three for fifteen, eleven strikeouts. Why will Aaron Judge be the focal point. He's coming off one of the great seasons by a right handed hitter in Major League history, the third time he has done that, and of course, as we all know, he has struggled in the postseason. Let's look at Judge regular season and postseason, and I'll show you what I'm talking about. I'm sure Yankee fans are well acquainted with these numbers. Those are his career regular season numbers. Two ninety four, batting average four to thirteen, on base six fifteen slug for an OPS over one thousand. Now, let's look at the postseason for Aaron Judge. Not quite as good. Batting average two oh five, on base three eighteen, slug four point fifty. I believe he has sixteen homers and an OPS of seven sixty eight. Not horrible, not great. You might say, ken small sample size. Well, yes, that's what the postseason is. Small sample size, and the Wildcard series is the smallest of sample sizes. Now I mentioned Crochet. He'll be the Game one starter for the Red Sox. He is their main hope for stealing the series and going deep into the postseason. There aren't many in October anymore, many guys that you can count on and say, Wow, he's got a chance to carry his team. I would say Trek schouolbl is one. I would say the Dodgers have a couple themselves maybe there's one or two others you'd put in that category, maybe Brian wu if he's healthy with Seattle. But Crochet, as you see right there, the Red Sox say it. He is their guy three and zero with a three point twenty nine ERA in four starts against the Yankees this season. You see that too. Red Sox haven't lost to the Yankees in the playoffs since two thousand and three. None of that stuff matters. What matters is who is on the field. And what matters also, of course, is the other starting pitching in this series, Max Freeze with the Yankees, Carlos Rodan and probably Cam Schlitzler, and also the bullpens. Now the Red Sox are gonna come in Game two with Brian Beayo and Brian Beyo has been really good for the Red Sox in the situations against the Yankees. Matchups against the Yankees, I should say, two point three to five ERA in eleven starts against the Yankees, one point four to four in five starts at Yankee Stadium. He likes that stage. He's not going to be cowed by it now. He had one great start at Yankee Stadium this year, seven shutout innings another one in September that wasn't as good, so maybe the Yankees had figured something out. Now the bullpen is going to be really interesting too, because the Yankees bullpen seemingly somewhat stabilized. I say that reluctantly, and the Red Sox pen leading up to Chapman, who has been the best reliever in baseball this season, has been much better Greg Reiser and Garrett Whitlock and Connelly early the rookie coming on forty four to eight strikeout to walk ratio in September. So this will be most likely a great series. It would be even better if Roman Anthony was involved, but he is not going to be involved. Now the other American League series now, the winner of the Red Sox Yankees faces the Blue Jays. The winner of the Tigers Guardians will face the Seattle Mariners. Now, this series is a matchup that we've seen twice in the last couple of weeks. Tigers Guardians al Central. You saw what happened. The Guardians had one of the greatest, not one of the greatest, the greatest comeback in Major League history from fifteen and a half games down to catch the Tigers for the division title doesn't matter now everything starts over with the postseason. And as strange as this is, as the Tigers went three and thirteen down the stretch, the Guardians eighteen and four Trek Skoubl gives the Tigers the same advantage that Garrett Crochet gives the Red Sox even over Max Freed in the other series. So this too, is going to be a rather interesting series because of the rivalry involving these two teams, and also the Guardians, for all of their magic this weekend and in September, one of the worst offenses we've ever seen in the postseason two twenty five batting average lowest in the major leagues. They ranked twenty eighth in runs. There are only three other teams that have ever made the postseason with that lower rank. It's two teams from the twenty twenty expanded Playoffs. There were sixteen teams in the Pandemics shortened season barely even count and then the two thousand and five San Diego Padres with Bruce Bochi as their manager. So the Guardians aren't exactly a major offensive threat, but the Tigers haven't been either. In September and the Tigers offense has been a question. Really. Even when they were hot, people were saying, well, how are they doing this? They're not that dynamic an offense. And in September the Guardians offense was actually better. So this will be the third time in three weeks the Guardians are going to see schoobl They've had limited success at best against them. They had one crazy guards ball innings against them or that kind of inning against him in their previous series. But I would expect School was going to be really good. Gavin Williams and the rest of the Guardians rotation has been incredible down the stretch. That's why they stole the AL Central title from Detroit. And the Tigers rotation being on schoolbl it's Jack Flaherty, it's Casey Meiser's in decent at times, I don't know and I don't know about their bullpen either. So what looked like a dominant Tigers team turned into a much less dominant Tigers team. And the one thing I'll say about Detroit though, as we go into this, I have a vivid memory of the twenty twenty three Texas Rangers eight and eight down the stretch. They lose three or four in Seattle in the final series to blow the division title, They've got to go all the way across the country to face Tampa Bay. We all thought they'd be a quick knockout and they weren't. So maybe the Tigers find their footing here. But the Guardians have this thing going with them. They're going to be at home where they've been a really good team. We'll see how this plays out in the American League. Now in the National League. Two really interesting series, and I know people are going to say, wait a second, the Reds have no chance against the Dodgers. Actually they do in my estimation, and they do because of a guy that I sho have mentioned with Scooble and Crochet earlier, Hunter Green. Hunter Green has been one of the most dominant pitchers in baseball the last month or so. And he's not the only dominant starter that the Reds have. They also have Nick Ludolo and Andrew Abbott. Andrew Abbott likely will get some cy Young votes. This is a rotation that in a short series can do some damage. The problem for the Reds actually it's twofold. They don't really hit either. Like their Ohio neighbors. They are particularly vulnerable to left handed pitching and the Tigers. I'm sorry, the Dodgers are going to throw a bunch of left handers at them in this series, starting with Blake Snell in Game one and a number of relievers. Red's only twenty fifth in ops against left handed pitching this season. And the other thing that is an equalizer for the Dodgers, if you don't even call it that, maybe even an advantage for the Dodgers is their rotation. We're talking about Snell, Yamamoto, and Shoyotani, likely in Game three. The Dodgers seemingly watch Otani in Game three so he can have a day off after the day he pitches, So regardless of whether they win the series in three or whether he starts Game one of the DS, he'd have a day off after he pitches. That rotation that I just listed, Snell, Yamamoto, Otani, that's as good as the Reds rotation. But at the same time, you just don't know how this is going to play out. And the other factor here the Reds bullpen has been hot. It's also got to be tired at this point after that stretch run in which they caught the Mets and beat them out for that final wildcard. The Dodgers' bullpen big time question. We know that now we're going to see Sasaki in the bullpen in this series, not Kershaw. Kershaw started the last game and will not be available, will not be on the roster, But that Dodgers' bullpen has been an area of vulnerability, There's no question about it. So the winner of this series will face the Phillies. That would be an amazing matchup if it was Dodgers Phillies. That's really what you would want to see in an NLCS type situation. But here there you go. Most people, virtually all people, I'm sure, will pick the Dodgers, and I understand it. The Dodgers though might not have Will Smith. They're facing a team with a really good rotation. I don't see the Reds winning, but I can see a scenario in which this is much closer, at least in the games and the way they're playing out than we think it's going to be. And finally, the final series, this one is really interesting. It's Padres at Cubs, two teams that, at various points this season looked like perhaps the best team in baseball. It was early in the season for both of them. The Cubs had that dominant offensive first half. The Padres had that amazing start and then the deadline again when they reinforced themselves. People like myself were thinking, Wow, they can overtake the Dodgers. They can be really good. Now it didn't happen for the Padres, and I see them now as a team that is very dangerous going into this postseason. Now they're much better at Petco than they are at home. Of course, they'll be on the road at Wrigley. The thirty eight and forty three on the road this season, fifty and thirty one. I'm sorry, this is the yes, the Padres thirty eight and forty three on the road. The Cubs are rather good at Wrigley, as we all know, fifty and thirty one. The question is can the Padres with their bullpen, emerge as this dominant force in the postseason. Now their offense a little questionable here. Loriano being hurt is not going to help matters at all. But Tatisan Merrill have gotten hot many had a big season finale on Sunday. I can see the Padres putting this together. Now. I don't know that it's going to happen. And they've been a team where times it's looked like something is missing this season, especially in the second half. But if they get quality starts, and they should out of Pavetta in Game one and Cesar King maybe in Game two, they can be a force. Now the Cubs too are in the same category. They can be a team that goes on a run here, but we haven't seen that click in quite some time. And Kyle Tucker, he's coming back now, came back this weekend. We'll see how he is in the playoffs. We'll see if he's okay coming off that leg injury. I just don't know whether the Cubs offense is going to ignite the way we saw it ignite in the first half. Again, it hasn't happened. What is underestimated about the Cubs is their pitching. It's been quite good. And yes they're going to be without Cad Horton, their best starting pitcher down the stretch, the rookie who will be either first or second in the NL Rookie of the Year bouting, but they still have him Monaga, they still have Boyd, they still have Jamison ty On, and the Padres have struggled against lefties, and in Monaga and Boyd are both left handed padres nineteenth in the league in ops against left handers. So I don't know which way this is going. I don't know which team is going to end up facing the Brewers, but this is going to be a test of two teams that we've seen at times this year be really good. Can they be really good again in the postseason. Well, we're about to find out. So there you have it, the top four series, the first four series, we're going to see Wildcard series, then leading to the division series, the Mariners, the Blue Jays, and in the National League the Phillies and the Brewers. They get to rest up and get to see how this all plays out. This week, we'll be right back with the inside.

00:12:22
Speaker 2: Dish Okay aj our slab pack ripping continues. Now, you just ripped a card that I.

00:12:29
Speaker 1: Think you're actually going to keep.

00:12:32
Speaker 3: I am, I'm going to keep it. It's a Ken Griffy junior rookie card. The old is the famous upper deck one, I believe it is. And yeah, heck y, I'm gonna keep it because I'm gonna get Griffy to sign it. I'm gonna get him to send it to me. What you can do, and I'm gonna get Griffy to sign it, and it's only gonna make it worth more. So I am all in on this card. I'm keeping it and it is one of the coolest cars with the highest turtle neck you've ever seen and the gold chain around.

00:12:56
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00:13:24
Speaker 1: Well well, well, well, all right, time now for the inside Dish, the part of the show where I talk about maybe a story I've written, a trend in the game, something going on. Well, there's only one thing to talk about in this segment this week, because this is a big day in baseball. This will be a big week and month in baseball for managerial changes. I wrote about this on Friday in The Athletic. I went through fifteen teams that could have a change in their head of baseball operations or their manager's seat, and we're going to go through some of them here because I'll obviously in baseball things change quickly. Things might have even changed this weekend. Now, the big question I'm sure a lot of Mets fans have after their team has collapsed with a three hundred and forty million dollar payroll, is Carlos Mendoza. From every indication, Mendoza is safe. He's not going to be held responsible for that pitching staff, the retation in particular collapsing. You see it right there, Andy Martinez reporting last night the Mets have no plans to fire Carlos Mendoza, but I am quite certain there will be some changes with the Mets, perhaps on their coaching staff, perhaps in their mix on the roster. I don't know what's going to happen there, but I would expect that it's not going to be simply something where they say, you know what, let's run it back next year with the same cast. And now that's not happening. Not when you do what the Mets did, embarrass yourselves in the final four months of the season. All right, let's get to some that are more realistic. Now we have four interim managers that must be decided upon by their respective teams at some point in the near future. Washington with the El Cairo, Colorado with Warren Schaeffer, Baltimore with Tony Mansolino, and Pittsburgh with Don Kelly. I would say Kelly is the most likely of those to stay. The Pirates did play better under him than they did under Derek Shelton. The real question in Pittsburgh is the future of their general manager, Ben Sherrington, who has presided over six straight losing seasons. If Sherrington goes, perhaps then Kelly goes too. But right now we don't have any indication one way or the other how that is all going to turn out. Two other big questions regarding managers in Atlanta and in Texas Brian Snicker and Bruce Brocci. Will they continue on or will they retire or step aside. That is something that looked pretty clear at one point this season, at least for Snicker, seemed like he was going to retire, but in recent weeks he's kind of hinted that he'd like to stick around, maybe not end on the way he did with that injury, moret season that the Braves had. They still have a ton of talent. They still have a roster that should contend for a division title next year, certainly a postseason birth. If this job opens, it might be the most desirable job of all of them, but it's not clear whether it's going to open. Bruce Bochi in Texas. I was around him this weekend. He is giving no indications one way or the other of what he wants to do, whether he wants to continue managing, be it in Texas or in San Francisco. If that opens up. It's been a rumor going around. I'm not sure I see it, but stranger things have happened. So Bochie has to make a decision, and the Rangers have to make a decision too, And as I wrote, the Rangers are going to be cutting payroll this off season because they didn't get to the playoffs after increasing payroll, and it's going to come down does Bochie want to be with that team for another year of potential frustration And if hypothetically the Giants are interested in him, Trebuster Posey has some interest in Bruce Boci. What do he want to risk his legacy there by going back into an uncertain situation in a tough division. None of these questions we have the answers to, but we should find out more in the coming days. Now I mentioned San Francisco. That's a really fascinating situation. Bob Melvin, their manager, had his option picked up on July first, So on July first, just three months ago, Buster Posey, as president of Baseball Operations, determined that he wanted Bob Melvin for his manager in twenty twenty six. And yet the Giants season was one of such extremes highs, lows, highs and low's again that certainly there is talk in the Bay Area, and there are articles written by Andrew Baggerley of the Athletics this morning and others about Melvin's uncertain future. It is not certain he's going to come back. The players really like him, they have been outspoken on his behalf, but it doesn't mean that Buster Posey sees it that way. So that's a situation to watch. And Minnesota is another one. Minnesota with Rocco Baldelli. You might say, hey, they traded half their team at the death. Come on, you can't fire the guy after they did that, traded after their team at the deadline had their usual run of injuries. WHOA wait a second, But Baldeli has been there, I believe seven years now, and they may decide we're going even younger. We just want to make a change and go to a different manager who perhaps would be more suited to managing an even younger team that they had at the end of the season. Not sure that's going to happen. Starting August eighteenth, when Rocco Baldelli challenged the Twins to be more aggressive on their base, on their running base running, that team picked it up a little bit. So perhaps the management of that team looks at them and says, okay, you know what, he got them going again, at least in that respect, Let's keep him on uncertain situation. The team was recently not sold but took on some minority investors, so they've been kind of in a weird spot the whole season. We'll see how that plays out. And then Joe A spot it in Houston. Now, Joe spotted to me, does not deserve to be fine, and in fact, a couple of weeks ago I wrote he was the front runner for American League Manager of the Year for keeping that team going when they had so many injuries eighteen players on the injured list in late July, including eight starting pitchers. They lost Alvarez or don Alvarez for almost three months. Jeremy pagne Izach Parade's miss significant lengths of time, as did their closer, Josh Hayter. The fact that they contended as long as they did was actually an upset, but their owner, Jim Crane is something of a wild card, and Dana Brown, their general manager, when asked by reporters, including on the Athletics chandeler Rome yesterday, about Spottish status, did not give a firm commitments that we're going to evaluate everything. Well, the teams generally always do that. But at the same time, to hold a spotter responsible for what happened there, to me, would be a serious mistake, and if he got out there as an available manager, I imagine he would get another chance pretty quickly. Two other situations to mention, only because if these teams flame out early, it's possible that you could see a change. Philadelphia Affilies with Rob Thompson, New York Yankees with Aaron Boone. I really don't see Boone getting fired. They played well down the stretch. They look like a team right now. Yes they could go out in the first round, but yes, they also could go to the World Series and maybe even win it. They have that much talent. They have an offense that, while yes, is home run reliant, can also beat you in other ways. They have a starting rotation led by Max Fried and Carlos Rodon that is really good and a bullpen that has not yet put it together, but at the same time is really good when it's clicking. So I don't see them playing poorly. I don't see them firing Aaron Boone. Rob Thompson. I don't really see that one either. But the Phillies have had progressively earlier exits in each of the last two postseasons World Series in twenty two NLCS, in twenty three Division Series twenty four. Should they get knocked out in the Division Series? Yeah? Could you see the question arising? You certainly could.

00:21:07
Speaker 4: So that is a whole lot of talk about a whole lot of different managers that might be or it might not be in trouble. We're gonna see in the coming days how this all plays out. It's gonna be a kind of an interesting week, to say the least. We'll be back right after this with grilling.

00:21:23
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00:22:30
Speaker 1: All right, here we go with Will and Ken. Let's get to the first question. This one comes from the Mets Up podcast. What should David Stearns learn from this mess? Great question, and David Sterns, as Mets President as Baseball Operations, is one of the more talented, intelligent executives in the game. It's the question about that. But what happened here was a collapse of starting pitching that really doomed the Mets. I was looking yesterday offensively since the deadline, they were number one in the majors, number one in runs per game. This was simply a product of a failed rotation. Now, they made some poor decisions Stearns did in the off season. Sean Maniah was maybe a good picture, but not someone you can necessarily rely on the way they did. He did get hurt and that compromised him. Frankie Montos was a decision they always questioned. People always questioned Clay Holmes turned out to be a good signing. I would say, so they had that. They didn't go for any of the frontline guys, and that's something Stearns does not like to do. And maybe that's the lesson here. Maybe you've got to go and go big for a starting pitcher in a way that they didn't. They were in the Crochet talks but did not get him. Now they do have the three kids McLain, Sprote and Tong that presumably will play big roles for them next season. You could argue they should have brought up McClain earlier. But to be in the position they were in so shorthanded, and I know they had injuries too. Griffin Canning was another one, but to be in that position, that's the lesson here. You cannot be that short on starting pitching. You've got to have better death depth, I should say. So we'll take one more question before we get out of here. Let's see what we got here. This one comes from Omar Alesanta, who asks do you think the Brewers will continue their incredible regular season carry it into the postseason. That is one of the defining questions of this October. And I would say that the Brewers are in a good spot here. I don't know, as I said earlier, that the Cubs or Padres are going to be that dominant a postseason team. They've had their moments, yes, and they have questions about them. The Brewers are a team that people underrate simply because they're the Brewers. Ah, they playing this small market. They don't have big stars other than Yelge. No, they've had great pitching all season. Now it's a little banged up right now, and that's going to be one of the questions they have to deal with. How's Tyler or McGill, how is Jose Quintana? What do you do with the miz who struggled down the stretch. But Freddy Peralta has been dominant, the missing Woodruff, Peralta, Priester, that group pretty dawn good. That's the key to the Brewers. They're pitching that has been the key. And they're also a team that doesn't strike out much. Those kinds of teams generally farewell in the postseason. The Brewers and the Blue Jays are both in that particular profile. So I do expect the Brewers to play well. Doesn't mean they'll win the division series. Against the Cubs or Padres. But they are not a fraud. They are not this impost. They finished ladies and gentlemen with the best record in the major leagues over one hundred and sixty two games. You don't do that by accident. All right, with that, that's the show. We will be back on Thursday, myself and Alana Rizzo for our usual live Thursday show at twelve thirty Eastern. You know where to find us, YouTube, Apple, Spotify. Let's enjoy the Wildcard series and we'll back talking to you again on Thursday.

00:25:52
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