The Opener

1. We were on Effectively Wild! Zach and I co-guest co-hosted the essential FanGraphs podcast. As Ben Lindbergh mentioned toward the end, we often reference them and they often reference us and (here I’m presumptuously riding their much more established coattails) I think if you like the newsletter, you’ll like the podcast, and I hope vice versa.
2. Yesterday we mentioned the many managerial openings left after a mass skipper shakeup, but it’s also the season for front office “dismissals.” Bill Schmidt is out as Rockies GM after the team finished the season a near historically bad 43-119. The Monfort family, which owns the teams, is often loyal and insular to a fault — Schmidt, for instance, had been with the club since 1999 — so it’s notable that Walker Monfort, the team’s executive vice president, specifically said they are “setting our sights on finding the right leader from outside our organization who can bring a fresh perspective to the Rockies.”
3. The Division Series starts Saturday with four games: Cubs-Brewers, Yankees-Blue Jays, Dodgers-Phillies, Tigers-Mariners. I endorse Grant Brisbee’s ranking of the entertainment value, while noting that Cubs-Brewers is very close to No. 1 with the sheer rivalry venom available there.

Here’s something a little different: While the Wild Card round wraps up, the teams that earned a bye are preparing for the Division Series that start this weekend. There have been a couple of intra-squad scrimmages open to the fans. In Seattle, the Mariners played a game that featured literal, elected Hall-of-Famer Ichiro Suzuki playing right field. And the Phillies, in an effort to approximate a playoff atmosphere, opened their scrimmage to over 30,000 fans. One of them was Defector’s Dan McQuade — who is somehow both of the most unique people I know and a classic Philly sports fan. He asked if we wanted him to write a little something about it for The Bandwagon and I was thrilled to take him up on it. Take a read:

How to make 30,000 people watch a meaningless game

By Dan McQuade

“Is anybody here a fan of the Phillies?”

Phillies PA man Dan Baker opened the festivities at the Phillies’ intrasquad game on Wednesday night with a pretty good joke. For seven innings a Phillies team in red pinstripe uniforms (usually the home jerseys) played “at” a Phillies team in the throwback powder blue uniforms (now a home look, but historically a road jersey). This was not the only time my friend and I discussed Phillies uniforms that night. The whole night was that low key. It was a simulacrum of a baseball game. No one could win, no one could lose. There was a 5th-inning stretch for the 7-inning game.

The game was a pastiche of baseball but remained interesting. Jesus Luzardo started for the Powder Blues and went three innings; all nine outs were strikeouts. Bryce Harper homered off Walker Buehler. Aaron Nola pitched for the Pinstripes and was basically the good version of Aaron Nola. There was a nice play in the field; I can’t even remember who it was or when it happened because the game didn’t matter. Mainly I stood around and cheered loudly for everyone except Nick Castellanos, but only because I thought it’d be really funny if he got benched in the intrasquad game. The whole night was just an excuse to hang out with other Phillies fans and pay $20 for a beer. The Powder Blues won 3-0, but they played the bottom of the 7th anyway so Jhoan Duran could pitch and everyone could practice his entrance for the playoffs. It was a scrimmage for the fans, too—31,363 of them. The Phillies could’ve sold more $10 tickets if they’d opened more sections.

Nothing really happened. But that could be in the fine print on the back of a ticket to any baseball game, including ones that feature an actual opponent. If you go to a baseball game, nothing might happen. It’s baseball. Like many other snoozers I’ve attended over the years, this one was still pretty darn fun. It was a pep rally where the players happened to play some baseball and you got to walk around and buy food and merchandise (they removed the clearance section from the team store). The crowd was full of kids. Not everyone was a diehard. Several people asked me how to get tickets. There was so much casual interest in an intrasquad game before the playoffs start that Phillies Charities ostensibly raised $313,630 for a game the Phillies would be playing anyway. Last year’s game was played in an empty stadium.

Sometimes it takes a bit for a sports team’s popularity to hit critical mass. In 2001 Sports Illustrated named Philadelphia the most overrated sports town. L. Jon Wertheim wrote that the city paints itself green on Sundays, but to check out any Phillies game to see how little this town actually cares. He was right about the size of Phillies crowds. The final years of Veterans Stadium had many small crowds, the giant stadium making them feel even smaller.

It would be a few years until the Phillies became a franchise that could hold the city’s attention. The team made a thrilling run to the playoffs in 2007, but the following season the literal fourth game still drew just 25,831 fans. By 2009 every seat was filled—the start of a sellout streak that lasted for 257 games. It had become cool to go to a Phillies game.

The Phillies won five straight division titles from 2007 to 2011. They won two pennants and a World Series. In 2010 and 2011, they finished with the best record in baseball for the only times in team history. The residual effects of that run will last forever. The team cooled off for a while—they had the worst record in baseball in 2015—but they are now in their fourth year of a playoff run. They are cool again. Thirty thousand people showed up for a fake game.

In 2022 the Phillies ended their season with a 10-game road trip then won a Wild Card series in St. Louis. The public playoff pep was limited to a tour bus with stops including a casino and a defunct prison that once held Al Capone. This year people are furious that the Phillies rally bus is going to Hannah Keyser’s hometown. I mean, they’re not mad about it going to Haddonfield because of Hannah. They just don’t think it should go to New Jersey. Whatever. All the Phillies live around there. “Fans should be on the lookout for postseason freebies including a rally towel, cheer cards, beads and more (while supplies last),” the press release reads.

The Phillies bus will probably run out of beads, because right now everyone in the greater Philadelphia area seems to want a piece of the experience. This is the real prize for a franchise that has ascended to consistently playing meaningful games — now, even the meaningless ones matter.

TIGERS over Guardians

Thursday: Game 3

⚾ Nothing against the Tigers, but they shouldn’t have even been here.

I’ve decided that everyone gets to gripe about the postseason structure once per year and I’m burning mine now. This outcome is indicative of why two wild-card teams is the correct number of wild-card teams. There are three divisions per league, three division winners, but three is an odd number. I understand adding a wild card both because it creates the necessary even number for matchups and also because it accounts for the possibility that a second-place team in one division is better than the division winner in another division and deserves to play in the postseason. And I understand adding a second wild card to create a dedicated Wild-Card round that non division winners must survive as a way of imbuing division races with greater stakes even after teams have clinched a playoff berth.

But, the introduction of the third wild card just… undoes what a second wild accomplished! Now, a division winner must be thrown to the Wild-Card round as a way of re-evening the number of teams, thereby erasing the advantage of winning the division. Yes, I know, the Guardians got to play all three games at home this week. But, after their historic comeback to win the AL Central, they wound up in almost exactly the same place as the Tiger team they overtook in the regular season!

This complaint has nothing to do with the specific teams involved, how talented or deserving I deem them to be. The expansive postseason field has devalued the regular season irrevocably and in this specific instance, rendered a thrilling September storyline essentially moot. –HK

CUBS over Padres

Thursday: Game 3

⚾ Oooff. And this is why we’re getting the challenge system next season.

In the ninth inning, Jackson Merrill pulled the Padres within two by homering to lead off the frame. Xander Bogaerts worked a 3-2 count before getting called out on the following pitch: