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Embrace the novelty of a Rangers-Diamondbacks World Series already!
Also: notes on the Padres losing Bob Melvin, a possible development in an antitrust case against MLB, and we examine a new pitching trend. I’m Levi Weaver, here with Ken Rosenthal — welcome to the Windup!
Thumbs up to D-Backs-Rangers World Series
“Let it go; it’s better than you think”
In his article today, Jeff Schultz calls this an “unappealing World Series.” A disclaimer: yes, I covered the Texas Rangers from 2016 to 2022. So I invite you to take this with a grain of salt. But I respectfully disagree! First, credit: Schultz does a good job of raising some valid questions about whether the playoff format hurt the teams with the best records. (Also of note — those teams all had flaws that were exposed under the playoff pressure cooker.) He also allows room for differing opinions: “… It’s worth reminding everybody what postseasons are all about. Drama. Upsets. Storylines. The fact the World Series matches two wild-card teams that each lost 100-plus games two seasons ago may not be considered must-watch TV for you, but there’s a fascinating element to it we should embrace, not drop-kick.”
But elsewhere, I’ve read tweets and articles bemoaning this as a bummer of a Fall Classic — won’t someone think of the precious ratings??? Ignoring for a moment that DFW is a top-five media market, I say: Embrace the novelty! Would everyone prefer a repeat of 1936-1964, when the New York Yankees went to the World Series 22 times in those 29 years? Boooooring.
GO DEEPERDiamondbacks-Rangers World Series predictions: Our experts make their picks
I’m sure Yankees fans disagree — and understandably so! It would be utterly ludicrous to suggest that any team (or their fans) should say, “Oh, no thank you. I’ve had my fill of success lately. Why don’t you have the pennant this year?” But unless you are a shareholder at Fox (which is broadcasting the games), why do you care about ratings? I love baseball. You love baseball, or you wouldn’t be subscribed to this newsletter. Sure, we all have teams we prefer to watch, but I am thrilled to get some October variety, even if it weren’t the Rangers. Reds vs. Orioles in 2024? Heck yes. Marlins vs. Mariners, or Blue Jays vs. Brewers in 2025? Absolutely. In a little over a week (at most), the 2023 baseball season will be over. Like it or not, these are the final games before the sport we love goes into hibernation. You can tune out, or you can pick a side, make a friendly bet with your neighbor, and watch Corbin Carroll and Adolis García light up the night.
How they were built: Chad Jennings has done us the favor of laying out how the Arizona Diamondbacks and Texas Rangers went from triple-digit-loss teams to World Series squads.
Ken’s Notebook: All was not well in Padres-land
On Sept. 19, Dennis Lin and I wrote a story for The Athletic headlined, “The Padres’ disastrous season reveals a shaky foundation and ‘institutional failure.'” In that story, we had an unnamed player using that exact phrase, “institutional failure,” to describe the Padres’ season. We had a former staffer describing the overall environment around the club as “the most toxic.” And we had another unnamed player describing the relationship between president of baseball operations A.J. Preller and manager Bob Melvin as “unfixable.”
The Padres, after opening the season with the game’s fourth-highest payroll, finished 82-80, 18 games out of first place in the NL West. And in his season-ending news conference on Oct. 4, Preller addressed some of the issues we raised in our story. “Bob is our manager, and he’s going to be our manager going forward,” Preller said. “I think both he and I, a lot’s been said obviously in the last few weeks. But both he and I are very excited about the challenge of getting this group, you know, back to the postseason next year.”
Preller also said this: “I think the anonymous quotes and the unnamed sources, I just don’t — we don’t give any credibility to that.”
Well, evidently those unnamed sources knew something. Preller this week allowed Melvin to go to the Giants, a division rival, with a year left on his contract. He allowed Melvin to go, without receiving compensation, after two seasons; the first ended with the Padres appearing in the National League Championship Series. The Giants awarded Melvin a three-year deal, viewing him as the ideal replacement for Gabe Kapler. Preller, meanwhile, is about to hire his sixth manager in 10 years. Most heads of baseball operations do not get nearly that many. The list of managers under Preller includes an interim, Pat Murphy, who replaced Bud Black in June 2015 and ran the club for the majority of the season. From there, Preller moved on to Andy Green and Jayce Tingler, two first-time managers, then Melvin, a three-time Manager of the Year.
So, enough of the “all-is-well, nothing-to-see-here” talk in San Diego. All was not well between Preller and Melvin, and it was disingenuous for Preller to suggest that it was. Three weeks after Preller said Melvin would be the Padres’ manager “going forward,” Melvin became the Giants’ manager. As always, actions speak louder than words.
Antitrust suit at decision point
“This is the sound of settling”
Evan Drellich has the latest this morning on the status of the antitrust case against MLB. Here’s a quick catch-up, if you’re just hearing about it: Before the 2021 season, Major League Baseball trimmed the number of minor-league clubs from 160 to 120, wiping out dozens of minor-league teams. Because MLB has a long-standing antitrust exemption, they were able to do so with very little pushback. But the suit has been filed, and while two of the plaintiffs have already settled out of court, two teams — the Norwich Sea Unicorns and the Tri-City ValleyCats — are still pushing forward in an attempt to have the case heard by the Supreme Court. Challenges to the antitrust exemption have been made before, but this one may have a better chance of success than its predecessors. One factor: This is the same Supreme Court that ruled against the NCAA in the “name, image and likeness” case. The fallout could be huge. But while we wait on the Supreme Court, there’s a plot twist. Drellich explains:
The two minor-league teams have a different but related lawsuit against MLB in New York state court that is coming to a head. Settlement talks in front of a judge are set for Tuesday, two weeks before a trial is to begin on Nov. 13. As part of those negotiations, MLB could tell the minor-league owners that both cases must be settled at the same time. If MLB is willing to pay enough to make the case go away, that would be the end of it — until some other case down the line pushes the envelope. As Drellich says, this now comes down to a decision: Do the plaintiffs want a paycheck, or do they want to change the landscape of baseball forever? We’ll keep you posted.
Evolution of the high strike
“I’m thinking about taking it all the way to the top”
My fellow baseball nerds, I have something beautiful for you: this article by Eno Sarris about “the battle for the top of the zone.” Sarris starts in the early ’90s when pitchers were taught that the key to success was the ability to pitch “low and away.” And it was true, for a bit. But baseball is a game of adjustments. Hitters began leaning out over the plate to reach the pitch, which led to a counter-adjustment: setting up “low and away” with “high and tight.” That leads us to where we are now. As immediate pitch-tracking data has exploded in the last decade or so, the sport has a much faster adjustment period. The sweeper, for example, has hardly arrived, and hitters are already adjusting. So Sarris enlightens us on the latest revolution: the high slider, which plays well off the fastball, especially when it is tunneled well. Sarris provides examples (some of them from as recently as the ALCS) and shows us not only that it works…
