The 2020 Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Tampa Bay Rays to win their first World Series title since 1988.

If only it was all that simple.

Blake Snell

Kevin Cash was the goat of Game 6.

I’ll preface this by saying I appreciate the usefulness of analytics but I don’t think it’s a be-all/end-all tool. 

The fear of the “third time through the order” is clearly something that is preoccupying baseball managers right now. I heard during broadcasts in the summer about the anxiety surrounding the third look the hitters get at the starter. And I understand some of the concerns, but one would think those concerns would be more pronounced in your fourth starter or a rookie whose workload you are managing. Not your ace. Not Blake Snell, your Cy Young winner.  Aces become aces because they dominate late into the game.

If Blake Snell had thrown 100 pitches early and the Rays were concerned with fatigue, the move would be somewhat more understandable.

He was at 71 pitches and was making a very potent Dodgers lineup look ordinary and over-matched. There was a palpable lift in energy when Snell was pulled and the Dodgers didn’t look back. The sun peeked around the clouds. 

And let’s pretend for a moment that  Blake Snell was allowed to pitch the third time through the order. Let’s pretend Mookie Betts homers off Snell in his third look at him. Snell would accept that as I think most baseball players would. That’s competition.

Your best versus their best is what the World Series is supposed to be. It may just be a “piece of metal” for some, but it shouldn’t be.

There has been a lot of yelling on Twitter about how computers are ruining the game and then counter- yelling that analytics are totally cool and should not be vilified. I have never seen “traditional” baseball ideas as an enemy of analytics or vice versa. They should just be considered tools in a tool box and balanced in their use for teams to achieve their goal.

If baseball wants to commit slow suicide, preventing the players from competing and having the fans argue for it would be a nifty way to do it.

I remember, years ago, the Tao of Stieb and I did a chat, and we both posted the chat on our respective pages. We got made fun of a little because our chat was basically the two of us agreeing with each other. 

Well, pop some corn. I’m here to say Tao of Stieb is wrong 

Let’s look!

I’m sorry people were dumb. It’s frustrating when there is nothing but a dichotomy. But it’s probably a bad idea to dismiss “eye tests” and “gut feels” as if they aren’t based on years of experience and a deep knowledge of the game.

It is frustrating for some people when something can’t be put into a spreadsheet. But some things can’t be.

I would buy this argument a little more if Snell was at 91 pitches.

But Snell was only at 71 pitches — and 71 pretty easy pitches at that— why would he only face one or two more hitters? Snell was cruising and attacking the strike zone. He wasn’t walking guys and he didn’t look particularly tired. It’s not just that it would be “more fun”, but it makes much more sense competitively to keep your best going and to get everything you can from him. There is no other game if this game isn’t won.

Here’s why it was misguided: it reveals that some managers have gotten so married to a dogma that is permeating baseball. Managers make dumb decisions all the time and they are hired to get fired. However, it is frustrating to see Kevin Cash be so limited and narrow.

When the Tampa Bay Rays made the World Series, I had mixed feelings. They were the best team in the AL in this shortened 2020 season. I like several of their players.

But I just don’t like what they, as a team, represent. I tweeted as much.

I suspect, in some ways, that baseball in 2020 likes this style of the Rays team the best and secretly wishes all teams were like it— good to great players but no real stars (stars cost money); a payroll of 30 or so million total; a “boy-genius” manager; a front office that gets highly praised while no one talks about the players; and a small fan base in a fairly indifferent market that can be threatened with “team sharing with a whole other country” because, who cares?  It’s just Tampa. No one else has power. It’s all malleable and anonymous. You could be a team from anywhere. You could be a team from nowhere.

And given the various comments Robert Manfred has made since becoming commissioner, malleable and anonymous baseball seems to be articulating something happening in baseball.

I don’t dislike the players who play for this Rays team.

Ji-Man Choi’s dog is enough to make me like them.

Randy Arozarena was a star born in this playoff run and illustrated perfectly that sometimes the MVP should be awarded to a player on the losing team.

It was frustrating for broadcasts to endlessly praise the “genius” of the Rays front office for finding players and then spend significantly less time praising the actual players who, after they were found, put the work in to get better. 

Baseball is the players

The Dodgers were my team in this series. Just as a core belief, I recognize that California and baseball just go together. It’s a place with a massive, diverse population where baseball can be played all year. I have dreams about California, even though I have never been there. I really like the look and feel of their stadium. 

They have been knocking on the door for at least half a decade with this core group. They lost back to back to cheater, cheater pumpkin eaters back to back in 2017 and 2018 (yes, the Red Sox cheated, too. I will not stop reminding people.)

It’s hilarious because the Red Sox traded one of the best players in baseball and he goes and immediately wins with his new team. Laughing at the Red Sox is the best part of being a non-Red Sox fan. 

It’s this stuff:

It was this:

There has been a long, rich and complicated history between Mexicans in Los Angeles and the Dodgers. An episode of the 99% Invisible podcast about what happened when the Dodgers moved west in 1950s

Dodger Stadium displaced a poor but vibrant community of Mexican-Americans in the Chavez Ravine, and that hung over “Fernandomania” when it took over Los Angeles in the 1980s.

The Dodgers won and my feelings were uncomplicated.  

Because this is 2020 and it just has to go there about everything, some shit went down. 

Justin Turner, one of the core members of this Dodger team, was removed from the game prior to the 8th inning. It was mysterious but soon forgotten a the Dodgers slammed the door and sealed the deal. 

Moments after the final out, with the Dodgers flooding onto the field, it was announced that Justin Turner, starting 3rd baseman, was pulled from the game because he tested positive for COVID-19. 

It was first reported that Turner had an inconclusive test the day before Game 6, so they fast-tracked his day-of test and it came back positive. The results were then phoned into the dugout and the team pulled Turner. In the 8th inning, after spending several hours with his teammates, the team’s staff, the Rays’ players and the umpires.

Not long after that, Ken Rosenthal reported that the first test was never inconclusive. It was just positive.

And then there was footage of Turner on the field, amongst maskless teammates, media people, celebrating.

Ken Rosenthal, for the Athletic, laid out the situation. It seems everyone said, “YOLO!”

“We’re going to get him a picture, then get him off (the field),” one Dodgers official said. “We can’t deny him that. The guy is the heart and soul of the organization.”

Friedman, when asked about the optics of that visual, said, “I haven’t seen the pictures. I totally understand the question. If there are people around him without masks, that’s not good optics at all. … But I think from our standpoint, I think the people who were around him were the people that would be in the contact tracing web anyway, which is how closely a lot of us have been around each other. Now I think subsequent tests we’re going to take are really important to figure out what we do and to make sure any of us that are potentially positive do not spread it to other people.”

Well, this seems totally fine! 

World Series MVP Corey Seager said, “That man, more than anybody, deserves to take a picture with that trophy, celebrate with us, have his family around and enjoy this moment. That got taken away from him, and that’s just not right. That doesn’t sit well with me.”

As though Turner was being punished unjustly, as if this disease cares about your special moments or your cancelled wedding or your grandparents in the care home. Or the hundreds of thousands of people who have died. 

All of this just looks so bad. They looked selfish and stupid, and it reminds me of how selfish and stupid so much of this has felt. People are defiant about the wrong things and indifferent about things they need to care about. There is a hopelessness in this that I just don’t care for.