Almost Cooperstown
We're a father & son who love to talk and argue about baseball! Baseball is the professional sport that has the longest history so there is a lot to talk about. We launched Almost Cooperstown noting that baseball contains a long history of players that, for whatever reasons, have been shunned by the electors of the Hall of Fame. Consequently here are many 'Almost' players still waiting their turn for induction. With less than 1.5% of the now more than 23,000 players in the HOF, we feel there should be more players included. In these podcasts we also discuss current seasons & trends. Please send any messages to almostcooperstown@gmail.com.
Baseball articles can be found here: https://almostcooperstown.substack.com/publish/posts
Almost Cooperstown
This Week in Baseball 9.17.23 - Ep. 431
Mike Rizzo is back in for the Nationals, and Chaim Bloom is out for the Red Sox. Cole Ragans fell down for and on the Royals, and a knuckleballer finally reappeared and got a win in MLB.
Have you ever pondered the paradox of the LA Angels - a team struggling despite housing the sport's finest player for nearly a decade? We unpack this baseball enigma and explore the Hall of Fame candidacy of Zach Greinke. We also weigh in on Ohtani's potential return (NOT) to the Angels and the possible teams vying for a Trout trade.
We love Pablo Lopez and Luis Arraez and examine the trade between the Twins and the Marlins. Plus, with new pace of play changes causing a buzz, we analyze how this has increased sports fans' engagement. Last but not least, we wrap up with a review of the divisions already clinched and a forecast for the wildcard races.
Please subscribe to our podcast and thanks for listening! If you have a suggestion for an episode please drop us a line via email at Almostcooperstown@gmail.com. You can also follow us on Twitter/X @almostcoop or visit the Almost Cooperstown Facebook page or YouTube channel. If you can please give the podcast 4 or 5 star rating!
www.almostcooperstown.com
The Mets gained a PoBO and the Angels lose a star and they might trade another one away. We had division races sort of come to a close and we had the first knuckleballer post to win in about five years. It's been a wild week in baseball and let's talk about it. Hi, welcome to Almost Cooperstown. I'm Mark and this is Gordon, and we love talking about baseball. We've had a busy, busy week and I was on and off the field. We had a GM in Washington get signed on long term.
:Happy that I think I mentioned that in last week's podcast that Mike Rizzo was sort of dangling there after they signed Dave Martinez, they made the deal with Mike Rizzo smart for the Nationals. Maybe the Lerners will decide to put some money in the team, but that we don't know yet.
:The Met's got their guy in signing David Sterns to be their president of baseball operations. I think Billy Epler's future is likely to remain with it.
:They've already decided that they want him there. I think it's a good combination between the two of them. David Sterns is going to suffer a little bit because I think there are some Met fans like, well, they got David Sterns, they should make the playoffs next year and they're going to maybe vie for a playoff spot, at best the next year.
:I don't think they're going to be evaluating their progress as a franchise on whether or not they make the playoffs next year.
:He is there with the pitching lab that he set up in Milwaukee, and to make this organization the Mets organization, I should say better from top to bottom, along the lines, as they keep saying, of the Dodgers and the Braves
:A guy that got dismissed this week, interestingly, was Chaim Bloom up in Boston was let go by the Red Sox.
:I don't think he ever recovered from the Mookie Betts trade.
:I think that was the fact that he didn't get Betts to resign, I think ultimately doomed him.
:And then to go ahead and what he did in return was bring in Trevor Story and paid Trevor Story not as much money as he would have had to pay Mookie Betts, but a ton of money, and that has not worked out and some things have worked out.
:The Red Sox have punched above their weight. I think people would say the last couple of seasons that people were not expecting them to be good. And they've been plucky, I guess, but at the end of the day they are still last now. In the American League East the Yankees have risen up and overtaken them these last few weeks, but they've still been a team that's generally like well, they're not as bad as we thought, but they're still not good.
:Well, they have some rookies that we talked about in the last podcast that are coming. So I love their manager. Like I mentioned, I heard him talk about Alex Korsing that maybe, general manager, is something he'd think about down the road and I think Haim Blum to that point. He was there in a division where you've got the Orioles and the Rays doing more with less and the Red Sox spending money like the Yankees do and not doing quite as well, and something had to give and it was Haim.
:Blum, just stunning to me that he's gone before Cashman is. Yeah well.
:I you know I'm a Cashman fan actually, so I will go right now and say I think that guy's done an amazing job over the years and can a guy kind of go south later in his career possibly and lose his touch? I guess maybe that's true. I think the Yankees were poorly constructed, so you would lay that on the general manager this season as much as the Mets were poorly constructed Right. Lay that on Billy Epler the same way.
:I think, I think there would be a lot of fans in New York that would want both of those guys gone after this season.
:So there's about some teams have, as we, as we record this on Sunday afternoon. By the time the games end today, I think the Dodgers are going to have something like 11 games left, and other teams have as many as 14 games left. There's only 14 baseball days left in the season starting Monday morning.
:So some teams are going to be playing virtually every day, some teams are going to have more off days kind of spread out in there. But you're really getting into the final stretch here and there's only a couple, there's really only one divisional. You know two divisional races left in the American League East, in the American League West. Yeah, the NL Central is close, but the Brewers kind of still live by their whole.
:I think they have at least a five or six game lead up this week.
:But the the AL West is still a dogfight because the Rangers, the Astros and the Mariners are virtual tie.
:Well, the Rangers and the Astros and the Mariners are just slipped a little behind a half game back.
:And then in the AL, like we were saying, you know the Orioles, you know, had opened up such a big lead, but the rays, you know, after scuffling a little bit about the around the all star break, have really Kind of come on strong and played good down the stretch here.
:Do you remember how far the Razor ahead at the beginning? Soon, we were talking about that team being like one of the great teams of all time, because they started out ridiculous.
:We should have learned our lesson from the Yankees last year.
:Right, right and, and you knew they'd come back. But I don't think we would have thought that the Orioles would have been the team to run them down Right and be able to stay in there and John might one of my favorite Oriole pitchers had a good game in his first game. Back John means, and how he pitches in the playoffs If he pitches in the playoffs, because you wonder if the guy can pitch much more than five innings.
:He hasn't. I just worry that young Orioles team, who a lot of the advanced stats don't favor them that much, runs into a brick wall in the playoffs and bounces out almost a little Unceremoniously. I don't think that'll happen because I think they're too good a team, but I worry that it could.
:I like the versatility of the team, particularly on offense, and their bullpen, with Butista, felix Batista being, you know, at the front end of it or the back end, I guess I don't know how you'd say it. He, he of the gives them a different dimension. T of the UCL problem, right? So he's gonna pitch through the UCL and that's really interesting to me, right, because Shohei has a UCL, he's done pitching and he's not gonna pitch again as he packed his bag and went back to Japan. Obviously, but they're gonna still try to have this guy pitch to a possible beat instead of having surgery because they have a chance.
:That's wild to me that is what, but granted, he's only throwing one inning as opposed to Shohei being a starter, and they're gonna take longer for his arm to fall off. They're gonna try and see if they can get through it, but we don't know that they're actually gonna get so far at to using him in a game. They're just trying to see if it's possible right now.
:Yeah, I just, you know, and it's so critical for for all the teams and I saw Kelly troop put out this week the fact her three inning minute on, you know, hey, it's a crapshoot as you get into the, into the tournament, right, there's 12 teams out of 30. She mentioned only 50% of the teams make the playoffs and yeah, we, we all know that. But the, the idea that your bullpen is is such a more important part now at this point. The Phillies made it to the World Series last year, we think in part because their bullpen went off the charts and pitched way above their. You know their abilities and that's how they were able to get all the way to the World Series. The other teams that are the big contenders all have really good bullpens and that's what I think. This, this playoff format now really requires a team to go all the way you can get in Right. But if you don't have that there, you're not gonna necessarily make it all the way or even that far at all.
:You know, possibly right, I agree with you. Yeah, yeah, the teams that have elite bullpens are, but those are the teams that are the elite bullpens are the teams that are also Leading the divisions is kind of go hand-in-hand.
:So. So it makes me think why the Padres who aren't in it decided they might have a chance, that they've got hater, they've got a Martinez, they got a bunch of guys in the bullpen that are really good, that pitched well last year, whereas the Mets looked at their bullpen once. They didn't have Edwin Diaz. They're like, well, there's no way. Even if they had Edwin Diaz, I don't know if that bullpen was enough.
:Yeah to compete. It would have been hard for them to win a World Series without the starting pitching being Overwhelmingly good and the Yankees kind of had the opposite right this year is they just didn't.
:Besides Garrett Cole, they got nothing consistent from their starters. They couldn't get to their bullpen, which is a pretty good bullpen. So I think in the playoffs you're gonna see. You know these teams that are kind of hanging on. They have the angels. They didn't have a bullpen that was gonna get anywhere, so they didn't even bother competing at the trade deadline. The Rangers They've got a nice bullpen, but I don't know if they make it in the Mariners. That's a good bullpen.
:Yeah and and so I think I think these teams are gonna, you know, kind of make it through and that that the wild cards you know are going to, you know, make some noise. But it's gonna be dependent on, on, you know, their relievers to help them get into the World Series if they can yeah, I tend to think that you're generally gonna see.
:That's why the Astros and the Dodgers is because they seem to find a guy every year in that Bullpen. That's unbelievably good and having a season. The Reyes have kind of shown that and you know, definitely like the Orioles if they can't get an effective Batista back. I don't think they have that nearly to the same degree and you brought up.
:You stole my thunder because you talked about the, the Astros and and the Dodgers. Both of those teams like there's weird things that when I'm with their starting pitchers Do you think about all the guys that went then. Same thing at Tampa, by the way, yeah, and Rasmussen Springer, all gone for the year. The Dodgers, like everybody. I mean I think Kershaw is like the only guy that was there and he's not necessarily a six inning pitcher. So I and the same thing with the Astros. You know they're down to where you know some of their guys aren't pitching anymore, and then Framber Valdez is sort of shaky.
:You know a whole bunch of guys have been shaky. So JP France might get a start in the playoffs. Yeah, I don't think you would have thought that before this season. So you know the bullpen's will help them. But in the playoffs, you know, the starters don't necessarily go six, seven innings anyway. And one starter who isn't doing that is I think I put out this week, and of course Jason Stark had already written an article about it before I put it out Zach Greenke is one in fifteen the season and he that is one of the worst might be the worst season for a starting pitcher who's gonna be a Hall of Fame player in the history of Major League baseball worst, final season I mean, I guess well my lights, a worse season, I mean just on record.
:And we went and we over, we over evaluate lumbar one, one and fifteen is pretty right, but he's playing for a crappy team, right, right, you know as I'm like gotten like no run support. No, he's hasn't pitched as bad you know, and I didn't realize that I guess in his first season he went something like one and eleven Zach. Greenke, so he's not wild, so we're assuming he's not gonna pitch anymore after this season.
:I think you said he's done.
:Yeah and so and and we think he's gonna be a Hall of Famer. But I was surprised at some of the comments that came back this week and how not everybody agrees with me and us?
:I think no. I mean, we heard a lot of really good things and we always love hearing things from people, you know, from the fans and from people talking about it, because I do remember one of the Royals fans saying like if you adjusted Greenke, even if he was receiving like league average run support, he would not be nearly as bad like he's gotten. Like I think he's got like under two runs a game or something wild in terms of Run support, so that can definitely lead to a guy having like a one-off bad season.
:But I think that that he was five and 17 in his rookie year. That's my mistake.
:Right, but I think that he's still a Hall of Famer and I know some people out there that we saw on Twitter and stuff were saying is he a Hall of Famer? But I'm like, is that Greenke isn't a Hall of Famer? Are you really telling me there's only three Hall of Fame pictures from this era? I agree that's a great point.
:I just don't see it that way. And he's 34 strikeouts shy of 3000. And I almost could go out and say if you strike out 3000 hitters now you have to do things that say you're not a Hall of.
:Fame picture. It's kind of hard. You don't strike out 3000 guys by accident.
:Right, right. And it's not like Greenke's striking out guys like he's probably not going to get the 3000 strikeouts this year.
:He's not going to necessarily start out 34 guys in the final. He's that.
:That's what it would kill you to finish with 2,991.
:I don't think he's going to come back to strike out nine guys next season and then retire. This is Zach Greenke. You're talking about Might.
:Yeah, that is a very Zach Greenke thing to do.
:By the way, I come back enough to get the number and then just be done with it. I think he walks out. He gets a 3000 strikeout. The ending's not even over, just walks off the field.
:I want to go back to the Angels for a moment because obviously you know, the news came out this week that show he was spotted in an airport in Japan, yeah so, and then all of a sudden, the next day it came out that he was out for the season with an oblique injuries and that's why he wasn't going to play anymore. So he's injured, obviously, and you know whether or not. And then the strange thing with Rendon, with his, his, oh, yeah, my legs actually broken, he's been broken for a while.
:They just didn't say it. Ok, and that signing for their Angels has got to be one of the all time. So and trout saying that obviously I want to maybe be traded. If you want to trade me, I'll listen to being trade. So Joe Posniewski put out this this week and this is pretty amazing. Over the past eight seasons, you could argue that the Angels have had the best player in Major League Baseball every season, that being either trout or Otani.
:Yeah, yes, aaron Judge won the MVP, but let's say that that year Otani because he pitched and all that stuff was was was most viable in that respect. Anyway, in all eight of those seasons the Angels had a losing record. How can you have the best player in baseball on your team? What's a team and have a losing record every season Can I don't even know that's possible to ever happen.
:You know, in baseball before Well, generally no, because the best players are usually on the best teams. It's unusual for really good players to be on a crappy team, but the Angels have basically not run that they've. They've tied up their money in the other guys and none of the other guys they've brought in at any point whether it's to bat around a Tony and trout or to pitch around a Tony and trout have given them anything.
:And I think he's mentioned the pitching right. So, besides Ohtani as a pitcher, okay, can you name one angels pitcher over the past eight years and say, well, yeah, that guy was a really good pitcher? I think it's, and you can't say Jared Weaver, because that was before that.
:Right, no, there's no guy that you could. There's probably a guy that has had a good season for them. What would be the kind of thing where you don't remember that and you didn't really know about it, and so I think that does not having any kind of consistent pitching either in the rotation or the bullpen. And then you you top that off with guys getting hurt all the time, having virtually no lineup protection. That yeah sure, both of those guys are remarkable, but you can't carry a team to wins by yourself, even as good as they are.
:Clearly it's not the case and it tells me that because I have trouble naming angel pitchers that that maybe pitching was part of the problem. Even they tried to bring in Cinder guard and he was already kind of toast when he got there, so that that wasn't like bringing in a big name picture when. Where have they gone and brought somebody in saying, oh, these guys are serious, they're bringing in a picture right now, they just are not doing it. So I just hope for angel fans sake that already Marino, that if they're going to tear it down now, if they let those guys go, well, it's not an if Otani is gone.
:That much is obvious at this point.
:Right, I'd say that the chances of Otani being an angel next year are less than 5%.
:And it's not going to happen. He's. There is no way he's going to be an angel. You're saying 0% chance.
:Wow, and trout, I don't know. I mean, does he want to be part of a rebuild, and but who's going to trade for him?
:So somebody will trade for trout. Yeah yeah, he's too good a player not to so.
:I wanted to talk about Cole Regans. Did you did you see the video this week and I know you should put this up? So Cole Regans picture was pitching against four Kansas city came over in the Chapman deal and he's he's pitching Pitching against the blue jays and he catches his spike in the first one on the mountain and falls down and the ball goes flying to the backstop Right he Rick Yankees like two pitches in a row three in a row.
:Then the next pitch he loses the ball and it goes flying out and so they scored the tying and the winning run. And then the next pitch he gets a spike caught again on the third time and it goes wild and they lose the game and I think they think the go ahead went. I wasn't over in that it wasn't a walk off situation, but that was the strangest three batter sequence that.
:I've ever seen.
:Yeah, three pitch sequence, you're right, three pitch sequence that I have ever seen. So, yeah, go back if you can and check out Cole Regans and see what it did. And I think I posted on the going. What is somebody kidding me here? Did this? This didn't really happen, did it? Well, it obviously did.
:So, yeah, that was and then yeah, and then we had a. Matt Waldron get the first knuckleball win since 2018 with Boston. Stephen Wright, nice to have a knuckleballer in the league again. It's always fun when there's at least one of them floating around. You know, literally. Yeah, I think.
:Mickey Janis was the, for the Orioles was in the league like three or four years ago was the last knuckle better so this would be he wasn't getting any wins. That would, that would and this would make the 33rd knuckleballer in the major leagues in the history of major league. Very exclusive club Right. We did an episode on knuckleballers and I was stunned at the time that we're only 32 and now there are 33. How about the players who had really good weeks this week? Um, you know, uh.
:I think the most interesting thing is that you know you have some guys on bad teams that had great weeks. Bobby Whit Jr is still kind of showing that he is going to be a superstar level player for Kansas city going forward. You just have to hope that he's not in a Mike trout, shohei Otani situation where the Royals are unable to kind of feel the team around him to take advantage of how good he is.
:And Luis Arias had another good week. That's not a bad team per se.
:I know there's, they're hanging around there 77 and 72. They're in that third wildcard spot, I think they're. They're certainly the type of team that that that has a shot going down and I think both them and the twins would say that was a good trade for them.
:I was going to ask you that. So Pablo Lopez also on the list for having a terrific week? Uh and and so who won that trade? And you're saying it's a, both teams want it's a, it's a win win for a change.
:It's a win, win for a change. Then they Marlin's got a guy that's, you know, a integral part of their lineup and the twins got a really good picture, and I think for both teams it made sense, because Arias is the type of guy that you know. You need a team that's kind of having a special season in some respects, like the Marlins, to really take advantage of, and having another big, strong pitcher in there for Minnesota is kind of why they've been able to just sort of stay afloat in that central where, despite the lousy season that Correa is, if he would have had a you know a season that they expected, I think they would have been way ahead and put that division away.
:And then you have a guy like trade Turner who just turned it on after he got that standing ovation. It was like a light clicked on for him and he suddenly remembered how to play baseball.
:Yeah, his B war for the season is up now to 3.7. So he'll maybe he'll end around four, which will be a down year for trade Turner.
:It'll. Just when you look at his year and I think this is something to look at, because we were looking at you know, how did Kyle Lewis win the rookie of the year in 2020? That's like, well, it was a 60 game sample. And so if you look at trade Turner and you isolate the beginning of his year, oh my God, he was just God awful, he was terrible. But then when you you add in the full context of his season, it's just a slight downturn, but all of our perceptions of trade Turner's this year as if he's been truly horrid. I think that can happen with teams. Sometimes, too, you had a team like the rays come roaring out to this unbelievable start, Best record of all time Well, but then they have a little bit of a struggle, but because they started off that way, you very much get the mindset that that's what they are for that season.
:Yeah, yeah. And another guy who I think you know as med fans. We're big Lindor fans and we think he's underrated, which is hard for a guy getting paid as much as he does to be underrated. But you know, really good defensive player having a great defensive season, really good hitter this guy is having one of the all time great seasons at shortstop and it's going under the radar. Is Corey Seeger? Right, corey Seeger has been unbelievable. I mean, I mean the numbers that this guy is putting up in the season he's having is not to be believed. And he's done it. He got hurt for a little bit of time, which hurts his sort of MVP standing a little bit.
:You know not, I guess Joe Hayes going to win it anyway, but Joe Hayes was always going to win this year's MVP, right, right. But, seeger, you know that when they gave him all that money to come from the Dodgers over there, he's showing that he was clearly worth that. I mean, and that team is hanging around a large part because he is, you know, a guy you can't get out when you need to. Royce Lewis is having with the three grand slams in four grand slams in nine games.
:Yeah, another one.
:Yeah, yeah, I mean that's. That's hasn't happened in ever. I don't even know.
:I had an unbelievable streak of grand slams, but grand slams are as much a thing of circumstances as anything else. It's really hard to be a guy that's good at hitting them, because you have to get up with the bases loaded. You have no control over that.
:But it helped. It helped the twins certainly, you know, maintain their lead and sort of have them sort of comfortably you know when they're already comfortably. Yeah, well, because the Guardians are so inept. So inept. I don't understand how that team went into the season thinking, yeah, we couldn't hit last year, we won't change anything and maybe we'll just hit more.
:Oh yeah. Well, we'll clearly get the same year out of Andres Jimenez again.
:Well, yeah, right, that hurt them. And then they traded one of their better hitters for Noah Cindergarten. And then they cut Cindergarten as bizarre. Right, I mean they must have really not like Ahmed Rosario to do that to the guy. I mean well, I don't know what he did, Playing great for the Dodgers. So, and Matt Olson, I guess we've got to give a shout out to the brave.
:You've set the brave single season record for home runs, right when they're breaking Andrew Jones.
:And I don't think I really would have thought that Andrew Jones had the all-time record. I would feel something like Eddie Matthews I would have, I would have, I would have. I knew Jones never hit 50.
:I knew Jones hit 51. And I think Aaron never did Right, so that's kind of how I knew he had to be up there Right.
:Right. So you know, Matt Olson, I guess making Braves fans forget about Freddie Freeman, I don't know Freddie Freeman's having a ridiculous Freddie.
:Freeman like season, though If you're a brave fan, yeah, freddie is great, but you have Matt Olson, so you don't care.
:And so you can really tell yourself you're a brave fan. Going well, we didn't spend as much on Matt Olson as we would have spent in Freddie Freeman, so we were able to sign Michael Harris and potential Cy Young winner and Spencer Strauss. Yeah, I'll be.
:I don't think it's the Cy Young this year.
:Yeah, let's talk about that. You were pretty clear on that when I asked you and I when I told you that he's got 200 and more than 250 strikeouts and like 180 odd innings. That's pretty ridiculous for a starting pitcher.
:He's also got like a four, almost a four something ERA, yeah, and it's just it's hard for me to have a guy like. It's not. It's not the pitcher that strikes out the most guys that wins the Cy Young.
:No, it doesn't, Because Dwight Gooden would have won more than the one that he did Exactly.
:And so I think there are other guys in the NL that have had better seasons that will get it, whether that's Justin Steele, I think Zach Gallen heard his chances by having a stinker against the Mets the other night. I think Kodai Senga will not win the Cy Young, but he'll finish in the voting for both rookie of the year and Cy Young. What about Blake Snell?
:I think Blake Snell could win the Cy Young. I think he's probably the guy who's going to get it and and you know the Cub fans love this Justin Steele.
:Justin Steele has an unbelievable like final two starts to the season and like really powers the Cubs into getting a wild card spot or the division somehow. Right, right, right, then I think it's either if it gets Blake Snell.
:Yeah, and that's you know you can do that these days. Right, you didn't used to be able to win a Cy Young for a team that actually isn't in the playoff race.
:Well, I think, because Felix Hernandez sort of got his career Cy Young that one year where they're like, ok, he kind of has to get one at some point because he deserves it. So he just they just gave it to him in one season where, like he didn't have that, he had like 12 or 14 wins that year. It's like the lowest number of wins ever.
:Right A Cy Young win. Yeah, right Right.
:And I think ever since then they're a lot more OK with giving it to a guy that's on a knock, the Grom would be a guy who the same thing.
:It wasn't about wins and losses, and I think we know that let's let's wrap it up now and talk a little bit about the year that baseball has had, just because the stats came out. We know we'll summarize the season, but from a standpoint of people going out to the ballpark to watch games, TV is up.
:attendance is up.
:It's a great thing, it's it's really impressive that the the average MLB attendance, by the way, in an early August was 38,000 fans a game. I didn't realize the average. Obviously there are teams with more than that and teams with less. And you got to carry the A's and all that. So all 15 games that day, on Saturday, august 5th, through 30,000 people or more. So you hear people's out. Baseball is, you know, going down the tubes.
:And I think that was that was the narrative up until this year, but I think the pace of play changes have really helped bring people back to the game.
:Boy that seems to me to be. I just can't believe it would happen that quickly that everybody. Hey, marge, you know the games are a lot faster now. Let's go to the game, let's get in the car and we can be back in two and a half hours. I don't see that happening?
:I think what it is is people are more engaged again. More people are watching more games on television, so there are more fans and more people are following than they have in previous seasons, and that's going to get people out to the games.
:More People are going to the ballpark, though in numbers, and we know how expensive it is to go to a major league game, and I don't know if it's an economic harbinger or anything like that. But to think that you know when people are saying the game has lost something, that people are willing to pony up and go, and I mean you drop a good or major league game, you drop a lot of money, that's a lot, not just on the tickets, by the way.
:But now I think the fact that it's not something that isn't that it is a laborious affair, which it could be. I remember going to games and you would just get into those late endings where you start getting all the pitching changes Right and the game just drags out and becomes unfun at a certain point. I think it isn't as much that way, and so it just feels like a more enjoyable experience for your dollar and the pitch lock I think we might have mentioned or not will be in effect for the entire playoff.
:We talked about that so.
:I think that you know that's basically nodding to the fact that this is working and, for the point you make out, maybe it's keeping people more engaged. They don't want people to turn off in the playoff game because they want, don't want, to watch. You know the pitchers stand out there and you know, you know, look like they don't know what's going on. Oh yeah, exactly so. So we got, you know, two division winners sort of set aside. We've the next one have seven more games are going to be down to the last seven games. Do you think we'll have any more clinching between now and when we record next Sunday? For sure you think one or the other. So you think that. Who do you think it's going to be? Twins will clinch? You think the twins will clinch?
:Twins will clinch their division. I think the Brewers could end up clinching their division. Okay, and then you only have the AL East and West remaining going in, and then the wildcard races. And then, the last week of the season, it'll be all those playoff teams slotting their pitchers to line them up to pitch in the playoffs, especially in the NL, with that final wildcard spot, it's going to be a dog fight to the end.
:No doubt.
