MLB: 2025 Postseason

The Game Room
1121

Right, it’s a knock-on from using Straw earlier in the game to field after Schneider pinch-hit for Lukes. Ideally you save Straw as your pinch runner since he’s basically the only fast guy on the bench. Of course at that point the Jays were up 4-3 so prioritizing OF defense makes sense too… baseball is a tough game.

I think the biggest issue I had with John Schneider’s managing was using Yesavage and Bieber. And that isn’t even hindsight; I was very confused at the time as well. It was almost like he saw Roberts using his starters as relievers and forgot that his bullpen was actually available and hadn’t been terrible (I have no idea why Fisher seemed to get buried in the WS; and Fluharty didn’t pitch in Game 7 either - they both seemed to have pretty solid season numbers). Of course his closer gave up the game-tying homer and his other setup guy loaded the bases in the 10th, so… baseball is a tough game.

1122

Your lead must be about as large as the distance between the third baseman and the bag. He wasn’t even CLOSE.

In 2025, Daulton Varsho didn’t line out to the left side of the infield. Not even once.

I remain really, really angry, and I’m going to stay that way. This was the chance, and they blew it. They didn’t get beaten by a better team, that would have been fine. They lost through inattention and stupidity.

1123

No, his primary responsibility should be be maximize his chance of scoring. You do not want him to be overly cautious. You want him to be the normal amount of cautious. Ending the inning with him on 2nd is no better then him getting thrown out at 2nd.

If we take a simpler situation a runner on 2nd and 1 out has about a 40% chance of scoring. Moving that runner to 3rd increases it to ~66%. Getting thrown out lowers it to 7%. So if your goal to score 1 run, you want to go from 2nd to 3rd you want to be successful at least 56% of the time for it to be worth it. If yours odds were 70% and you get thrown out, it doesn’t make it a bad decision.

Obviously this situation is more complicated (does the ball drop, how good a throw will the outfield make to 2nd, can Barger get to 3rd if the ball drops etc..) but the logic is similar. If you think the ball probably drops and you think you get an extra base if it does, then it is definitely worth some risk of being doubled off if the outfielder makes a great play.

1124

Yeah, you’re right. I went back again and found some images and video, and he definitely need a bigger secondary lead.

You can see a pic from right before contact here: Isiah Kiner-Falefa Addresses Baserunning Decision That Might Have Cost Blue Jays Game 7

And yeah, he had at least two more feet, probably three. Even on a line drive to third he would make it back easily. I’d be mightily pissed too, were I a Jays fan.

ETA: The Barger one is much different, I think. You can argue about whether increasing the chances of getting doubled off is worth increasing the chances of scoring a run. But in this case IKF decreased his chances of scoring for no gain at all.

1125

Barger made a dumb error, too. The play was in front of him, and he should have been watching more closely. That’s a mistake made with the ball in play though, and it happens.

Kiner-Falefa failed badly, BEFORE the play. That was inattention and being disconnected from what was going on. He was not in position before the pitcher was thrown and clearly didn’t think about how he was going to attack the plate if the ball was hit on the ground, as he chose the worst of several option.

Baseball is a game of paying attention. Nothing happens and then action happens explosively. The job of a baseball player begins with thinking what you will do in response to event X BEFORE it happens, because if you don’t, you will fail. He didn’t, and he changed history and lost Toronto a World Series.

1126

And the Third Base Coach should get a significant portion of the blame too. His job is to remind the base runner of all the options and tactics.

1127

I feel bad for Toronto. I really wanted them to win. Still, they deserved to lose. They had games 6 and 7 at home, and they had both games in their hands and let them slip away.

1128

And the normal amount of cautious is being close enough to second to not be doubled off to end the game.

Given how hard the ball was hit, I’m not sure he scores even if the ball is one-hopped by the left fielder. The outfielder wasn’t more than about 50 feet from second base when he made the throw. If the fielder fields the ball on one hop, he has a great chance to throw out the runner at the plate…if he even attempts to score.

If he isn’t doubled off second, the Jays have one more chance to tie the game. Which is a helluva lot better than the game being over. And it wasn’t even a ‘great’ play by left fielder. He ran in and caught the ball…nothing spectacular about the play.

1129

True, but probability-wise, it’s far likelier that the Jays batter hits a ball to anywhere on the field other than directly to Muncy, the Dodgers 3B. It was quite unlikely that a line drive would go to Muncy in such a way that Kiner-Falefa would get doubled off. And even with the fear of being doubled-off, Kiner-Falefa was being unnecessarily close to third base. He could still have easily afforded, say, 2 more feet of lead and beaten Muncy back to third base if Muncy had caught a line drive.

1130

The Gold Gloves have been awarded:

AL:

1B) Ty France, Detroit

2B) Marcus Semien, Texas

3B) Maikel Garcia, Kansas City

SS) Bobby Witt, jr., Kansas City

RF) Wilyer Abreu, Boston

CF) Ceddanne Rafaela, Boston

LF) Steven Kwan, Cleveland

C) Dillon Dengler, Detroit

P) Max Fried, New York

Utility) Mauricio Dubón, Houston

NL:

1B) Matt Olson, Atlanta

2B) Nico Hoerner, Chicago

SS) Masyn Winn, St. Louis

3B) Ke’Bryan Hayes, Pittsburgh/Cincinnati

RF) Fernando Tatis,jr., San Diego

CF) Pete Crow-Armstrong, Chicago

LF) Ian Happ, Chicago

C) Patrick Bailey, San Francisco

P) Logan Webb, San Francisco

Utility) Javier Sanoja, Miami

1131

Trivia question (and if there is a sport that has more trivia, I would sure be surprised): 73.5 innings is a rather long WS – since it became best-of-7, how many have been longer than that?

1132

I figured it was the longest, right? I’d be pretty surprised if there were a longer one… but baseball is a pretty old game, so maybe?

ETA: OK, I think I see what you did there. Interesting bit of history…

1133

MLB is auctioning off items from the World Series. The bids are entirely reasonable and not insane at all, just in case y’all were thinking of pooling some funds together to buy your buddy Munch a baseball trinket or something. Here’s the ball that IKF should have scored on - maybe RickJay would like to blow it up or something. Personally, I have my eye on Ohtani’s first World Series strikeout ball.

1134

$49.99 for a jar of ‘game-used dirt’. An absolute steal!

1135

And the Veteran’s Committee candidates have been revealed:

  • Barry Bonds
  • Roger Clemens
  • Carlos Delgado
  • Jeff Kent
  • Don Mattingly
  • Dale Murphy
  • Gary Sheffield
  • Fernando Valenzuela

With the new 2 and out forever rule, this is just the HoF deciding to humiliate Bonds and Clemens further-note when they are rejected this time (with 5 or fewer votes), they’ll be off the next applicable ballot in 2028, will get one more chance in 2031, and will be toast until long after the sun burns out. [Yeah they may change this rule at some point before Polaris is the pole star again but I wouldn’t bet on it.]

I am also pissed that Lou Whitaker got ignored once again, along with Dewey Evans. These tiny voting polls pretty much ensure crap candidates get in while superior ones get shuffled out, meaning Mattingly and Murphy are almost certainly the leading candidates here. At least Steve Garvey is off this time too.

1136

I agree with pretty much everything you said, but this is dead-on. Mattingly and Murphy are definitely going to get in, and they should share a wall with Harold Baines as the least deserving HOF members of the last 50 years. I’ve never understood the casual fans’ obsession with these two.

Also agree on Bonds and Clemens. It’s nothing more than a shame walk for them. Just leave them be for another 15 years and wait for some sanity to return to the topic.

1137

I did a cursoy scan through the WS list on the wiki thingy, looking at all the 4-3 series, and none were even close. One distinctive thing about this series was that each team won only 1 home game, but LA took extra innings to do it, so there was only 1 game that skipped the bottom of the 9th. Because of this, it looks like this series beats all the others before it, even the 1919 one, which previously held the record at 71.5. None of the longer series went past game 8.

My scan was incomplete, though. I did not look at any but the 4-3s, so there could be one with fewer games but more innings.

1138

I don’t think Mattingly and Murphy will get in…it’ll more likely be Delgado and Kent. But really, the only two who should be going in are Bonds and Clemens. Two chuckleheads who cheated but we’re probably hall of famers anyway.

I’d take Lofton, Tiant, Whitaker and Cone over any of these guys. I loved Mattingly, one of my all time favorite players, but he’s not worthy.

1139

I’d also take Keith Hernandez and Jim Edmonds over everybody below B. & C.

1140

That’s a shame that Jacob Young didn’t get a Gold Glove.