Ken Rosenthal’s Postseason Breakdown: Blue Jays, Brewers, Dodgers & More

Ken Rosenthal’s Postseason Breakdown: Blue Jays, Brewers, Dodgers & More

Let’s kick things off with your nine questions that will define the postseason after a hot mess of a regular season. I want to start with the Toronto Blue Jays because you also wrote a separate article to the side about how you’ve called them the Paper Tigers and now you have shed the label. I’ll let you kind of run with this because I know you’ve had a fun relationship with Blue Jays fans. Felt like you were just telling it like it is and now you’re giving them praise. So, what do you think of this Blue Jays team heading into the postseason now and not having to deal with the wild card round, too? It’s good for them. And they’ve lost six straight games in the wild card round three different years, 2020, 22, and 23. And for them to survive that really bad week at the end of the season and to come through at the end, to get that buy, to get the AL’s title, those are all really good signs. And the reason I called them paper tigers in 23 and 24 is because they were a team that did not play to their potential. It’s as simple as that. They had a vastly talented group and they underperformed. This year’s team is sort of the opposite of that. And not only did they get an amazing comeback of the year player performance from George Springer, they also got contributions from what Pat Murphy would describe in Milwaukee as average Joe’s. And I’m talking about Nathan Lucas and Miles Straw and Ernie Clement and Davis Schneider and all the guys who aren’t stars on that team but make valuable contributions on an everyday basis. Addison Barger, I can go right down the line. Tyler Heinaman name one after another. And that’s why for me that’s been a very interesting team to watch and I’m sure for fans there it’s fulfilling to see everything come together in the way that it has. Now, does it guarantee they’ll beat the Yankees or the Red Sox? Of course not. It’s the playoffs. Things happen. But they are well positioned. They are a complete team and their bullpen, aside from Jeff Hoffman, has come around. Now, Hoffman’s had some struggles as VO is down. That’s going to be a concern. But I kind of like where they are right now. And of course, that’s why I wrote what I did, just in praise of them when they were deserving of praise for the year that they had. Ken, just because they don’t have to play the wild card round and they haven’t won a game in those rounds, does that mean that their wild card round now goes to the division series? Because technically, it’s not like you just get to skip the round. It still means the same thing. So, can they win this division series against the Yankees or the Red Sox who, you know, we know how hot the Yankees have been and the Red Sox are going to be throwing it all out there. So, whoever wins that series, can the Blue Jays turn their fortunes around and beat the next team? Well, AJ, the wild card round is unique, of course, because it’s two of three, and you can go out really quickly, and that of course is what happened to the Blue Jays, and they’re in somewhat of the same situation as the Brewers. The Brewers have lost five straight opening series as well. One was a division series, I believe, the others were wild cards. I’m not exactly sure, but yes, there is that thing hanging over them where they’ve got to get through that first round. And they’ll have homefield advantage. They’ve been a really good home team at Rogers Center, which has had an electric atmosphere, especially in recent weeks. So, everything is there, set up nicely for them. Whether it happens or not, the Yankees have played really well the last few weeks. The Red Sox, if they get past the Yankees with Crochet and Beo, they could be a problem. So, I don’t rule anything out, but at the same time, the Jays should be well positioned. Should we look away from the fact that they don’t have a lot of homers, that they don’t play what is considered winning playoff baseball? Is their style, the team they built, base running, defense, low, I mean, never strike out in today’s baseball sense, is that going to can it lead to success in the playoffs and buck the trend that we’ve had for the last however many years? Well, home runs certainly are good. We all know that. But the Jays do have the lowest strikeout rate in the majors. The Brewers are not far behind them. And they’re comparable type offense. These are offenses that put pressure on defenses by putting the ball in play. And I believe the Blue Jays had the highest batting average in the league. And we all discount batting average now. But what does batting average translate to? Base runners. They have base runners. It’s pressure on the pitchers. It’s just a different kind of way to go about it. Now, they have the ability to hit home runs as well. It’s not their strength, obviously, but can they win a series? Can they go far in the playoffs with this style? I don’t see why not. Ken, I can tell who you’re rooting for with your black shirt. So, we won’t tell anybody, but I know what that means. So, we’ll let we’ll let people try to figure that out. Lots of teams. I I know though, Ken, we’re we’re sympatico, so I know I know what it means. It’s okay. You’re not going to let anyone in on this? I have no idea what he’s talking, but we had this argument earlier and I’m throwing for you a curveball here besides the fact who’s your X-factor in these playoffs because we had a whole conversation about who mine was, who Cratzes was, and Scott couldn’t come up with one. So, who’s your X-factor in these playoffs for a team to make a run to win the World Series? Define X-factor. What do you mean? The guy who would be the player to winning. got but not Kratz thinks Kratz is like TKO. Yeah, no kidding. Kratz TKO pitches well. The Tigers do well. I’m talking under the radar guy that no one’s talking about that has to be show up big because there’s always this guy that shows up in the postseason I could stand out and say boom he carried them. Marco Scootero the one year for the Giants, right? I mean that’s an X factor. Okay. I was going to say Jeff Hoffman but we’ve already talked about him. He certainly would be an X. You love the Blue Jays now. They have black in their uniform. Anthony Vulpi would win. Anthony Vulpi if he has a big postseason. He’s done that before and certainly coming off a poor regular season. It would be great for the Yankees if he did that. Trying to think of some others. How about Kik Hernandez? He always seems to be an X- factor in the postseason. Those are two that kind of jump out to me. I’m not sitting here thinking of them all off the top of my head, but those two, Ryan O’Harn and San Diego could be another one. Any number of guys, AJ, could be heroes in October. We know that. Yeah. And mine was Tyler Heinman because he was our guest today on the show. I wasn’t supposed to do an XFactor. And I my guess is I guess maybe AJ’s talking about the 1919 black socks with the with the black shirt. I don’t know. I’m almost know. Okay, you guys have your inside jokes. I’m going to bring it back outside. Not Scott. He doesn’t know. I don’t know. Sometimes you got to just let him cook and let everybody else be uh befuddled. Let’s go to the Brewers. So, this is the best record in baseball, right? And this is a team that’s consistently made it to the postseason. I think sometimes we look at the best record in baseball and don’t necessarily look at the state of the team right now. This is a good team, but Brandon Woodruff is out. You wrote about some of this in the athletic story, which I encourage people to check out. The one I want to pinpoint is Jacob Miseri. remember how much we spoke about him and yet he’s a rookie and he might not really factor into much of the postseason with the Brewers. I know he’s going to play and pitch, but he really hasn’t looked good the last couple months. He hasn’t. And Scott, I’m glad you made that point about them because they have been the best team in baseball. Their record reflects that. So do their rankings in RA, runs per game, defense, any number of different scenarios. The problem I have, the concern I have, I should say, with the Brewers right now is that they’re not the team they were necessarily in July when they had Woodruff, when Miseroski was going well when Tyler McIll was healthy. Uh Trevor Miguel, I’m sorry, was healthy and everything seemed to be really going well. Now, Migill’s back. DL Hall’s back. Their bullpen might be getting put back together in a really good way, but those are concerns still. Miguel will miss some time. Hall missed some time. And yes, they pitched Sunday and yes, the hope is that they’ll be back to form, but that is my concern really. They had one point, and I talked about this repeatedly, a depth of starting pitching that was kind of the envy of the sport. And now they’re in a situation where Jose Canana coming off the IIL is going to have to be their game three starter most likely. It’s just not as stable a situation as they’ve been in. Now, that said, this is still a very good team. This is a team that knows how to win games. And this is a team that has figured out its pitching the entire season going back to opening day when they had nobody when everybody was hurt. So, I’m not discounting them by any stretch of the imagination, and no one should discount them. I just wish, and you can say this for a number of teams, I just wish they were in a little bit better spot. Ken, I just saw them on on Saturday, and yes, Miguel’s back. They’re not sure. I don’t know if they’re sure what they’re going to get from him because I think when he threw his thing and maybe his VO was down a little bit so they’re hoping it jumps back up with the rest and deal they don’t know what they’re going to get but Jose Canano they don’t know what they’re going to get. It’s like just such a crazy story that they’re where they are and there just so many question marks for this team which scares you a little bit if you’re a Brewers fan. But I want to say this and I think you would agree with me this. Brandon Woodruff being out is to me sucks more than any other player being out just after what he went through. And I talked to him on Saturday and we had a great conversation. He’s a great guy, but man, I just have to say this that him being out with the arm injury again after all he did to come back from the shoulder injury just breaks my heart. Like you know, you know, we’re not supposed to get personal. We’re not supposed to. But when you see a guy, especially as a former player, go through what he went through and now he can’t pitch at the biggest stage, it literally just kind of it pulls at your heartstrings for me. Oh, I’m with you, AJ. And Brandon Woodruff, you’re right, is one of the better guys in the game, and he had an incredible rehab, incredibly difficult rehab, and it took him a long time to get back. He was back, and he was pitching really at a high level again. But when it comes to injuries, and I had a whole section in this article today about injured players, Bo Bashette, we might not see him. Kyle Tucker, we’re going to see him, but he’s going to be maybe compromised. Will Smith the same. There are so many injury situations that are worth discussing. I mean, my heart breaks for Zack Wheeler, too. This could have been a Sai Young for him in a special season for the Phillies, and he’s not going to be there. Trey Turner is coming off an injury. So all of these things are difficult for teams. Kate Horton with Chicago Cubs as well, but you’re right with Woodruff in that his rehab was longer and more involved and he’s given his heart and soul to coming back. And for him not to be available here, I’m sure is crushing to him. All right, a team that probably nobody’s going to talk about and I’m probably going to get in trouble for even bringing him up, the Reds. Is there a scenario where the Reds can beat the Dodgers? I get it. Anybody can beat anybody. But in what route do the Reds beat the Dodgers and stun everybody in this playoffs? Starting pitching. And that is the route and that is the way you can in your head think of the Reds pulling off an upset here. Now listen, the Dodgers have tremendous starting pitching of their own. It’s going to be Snell, Yamamoto, and Otani. It’s ridiculous. They’re all at peak form right now. But Hunter Green is at peak form right now. And in game two, they’re going to go with Latell to start and then back him up with Looo, maybe get some lefties out of the lineup then or vice versa or whatever. And then in game three, they have another possibility with Andrew Abbott that is a Sai Young candidate. So that is the way that they can do this lowscoring games and just being really good with the starting pitching. Now that said, in 2020 in the pandemic year when they had the 16 team playoff, the Reds were similar. That’s when they had really good starting pitching with Bower and some others as well. And they didn’t score in the wild card round. That’s my concern here that their offense, which is inconsistent at best, is just not going to be good enough to take advantage of that starting pitching, assuming it’s good. Other than that, I still think this is going to be competitive because of that pitching. And even the bullpen right now for the Reds is in a pretty good place. Hey Ken, do you agree with the decision by the Dodgers to wait until game three for Showi Otani and then if there’s no game three he would pitch in game one assuming they win? The reason I ask this is what if they lose? What if they’re losing in game two and you’re like damn I wish we had Show Otani pitching. He might have the best stuff on the entire team at least top two or three. So just curious if you think that they should have laid it out that way. I know Yamamoto’s good. I know they spent money on Stell and he’s really good and they’ve all been good lately, but can you imagine if they lose two games here and Otani didn’t pitch? Well, can you imagine if they lost two and Yamamoto didn’t pitch? I guess you could imagine it without Snell, but they want Snell in game one for whatever reason. Okay, the idea with Otani, and I understand it, is to give him a day off after the day he pitches. So, he’ll have that after game three. He would have that after game one of the division series. The way that is laid out, there is a day off after game one in the division series. That’s what they’re trying to do here. Remember, they’re thinking about long-term always with Otani. And it’s not just about this year. It’s about preserving him. This guy’s had two major elbow surgeries. They cannot take a chance and lose him. So, they’re just trying to give him the best opportunity to be at peak form. So, I definitely understand it from that perspective. And if they go out 02 to the Cincinnati Reds, well, man, they they should beat the Cincinnati Reds with Otani pitching game three. They should be able to handle this. Okay, put it that way. We wouldn’t even be here if it wasn’t for the fact that they got rid of game 163 yesterday. We could have had an epic day of baseball in my opinion. What’s your opinion on game 163’s? And do you know the genesis of why Major League Baseball said we don’t like these? They get they get in the way of our off days that we can’t push things back and travel is tough. I love game 163. Who doesn’t? But when they went to 12 teams, this was the price that the sport paid and the reason is they don’t want to push back the wild card round any further. that would push the division series back further and then you’re having an even longer layoff for the teams with the buys. I understand it and actually it makes sense in my opinion, but at the same time something is lost and you go to 12 teams, you’ve got to have 12 teams, man. Oh, we got to have 12 teams. Give more teams a chance. Get the additional revenue. Okay, we all understand that. But yes, something pretty magical was lost. AJ, I believe you played to game 163 or two and it’s incredible. It’s a one game playoff for the division title or whatever the case might be. Yeah, it would be nice if we still had it. Yep, I’m with you. There’s the anniversary, Ken, of the 2008 game, I believe, the blackout game. We had to play We played two extra games. We played two extra games that year, believe it or not. So, they had to back it up two days because we had to make up a So, we played three games in three days that year. We we had to beat the Tigers, the Royal or the Royals, the Tigers, and then the uh Twins in three straight games. And one of them was a makeup game, and the other one was the the game 163. And then the next year we beat the the Indian Guardians. So, we beat four different teams in four days technically. Wow. I just want to know why. Yeah, that Scott Braun is why I’m wearing black in tribute to the Chicago White Socks of AJ Pres. Uh, words coming right out of my mouth, but into Ken’s instead. Ken, you’re literally saying exactly what I was going to say. I All I want to know is this inside joke. Is it something we’re not allowed to say on the air? Is it? Yes, you’re not allowed to talk about a fight club. I can’t wait for the text. We all know who Ken’s favorite team is. The group text coming in hot, right? It’s not a baseball team. It’s It’s something else. But whatever that is, Ken, good luck to your team and enjoy the start of the postseason. We’ll see you on fair territory on Thursday. Scott, I want to make one thing clear. I don’t have a team. People say I hate their team. People say I love this team or that. I don’t care. I just care about good stories, entertaining games, and going about it that way. Okay, it’s on the record. I don’t have a team. Thank you. Thank you. And FT is mostly the same way. Broadcasters, etc. It happens all the time. You’re doing a good job. You’re doing a good job. If both sides are saying you love and hate their team, that means you’re covering them correctly. Ken, thank you. Enjoy all day baseball. Thanks, guys. That’s FT Senior Insider Ken Rosenthal. That is the inside scoop presented by Lid’s new sponsor alert. Text territory to 29017. You just type 29017 in your phone and text territory. 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FT senior insider Ken Rosenthal joins the crew to break down the nine biggest questions heading into October. From whether the Toronto Blue Jays can finally shed the “paper tigers” label, to the Milwaukee Brewers injuries, the Reds upset chances against the Dodgers, and how teams handle stars like Shohei Ohtani, we cover it all. Plus, Ken weighs in on postseason X-factors, the loss of Game 163 tiebreakers, and which teams are best positioned for a deep run.

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