Can Taking a Called Third Strike Make You a Better Hitter?

ALCS and the NLCS are settled and we're down to our final four. The Dodgers, the Brewers, the Guardians, and the Rays. The three Davids team up to take down the Goliath. It's this week in baseball. Will they will they do it? Do you think are you picking the field? You got three teams of the Dodgers. Who who are you g who who do you feel better has a better chance of winning it right now?

Guardians have the lowest payroll in all of Major League Baseball. So you talked about the Davids and you're right, you've got the sort of the the s situation where the owners you know are hoping the Dodgers win so that they can claim they need a salary cap, but you've got three out of four that are on a l lower half of the salary and then the lowest as well. Right. If you if you've been you've really got an argument this postseason right here that you don't need the salary cap to compete because you've got three teams that are on the lower end of payrolls. Yeah, you've got the Dodgers, but clearly it's not payroll that's what's making these take these teams great.

In a lot of these cases, it's it's the pitching. It's the pitching. Well, and and how we got here is interesting, right? The you you mentioned that the Brewers are through, and the Brewers got by the Padres, and for me that series hinged up on Mason Miller not being able to get it done, you know, at the When he blew that game. And and a great great job by Churio getting the base hit, you know, for those circumstances. So credit to him. If in a year where you win the World Series, he doesn't do that. Yeah, if he was gonna be at one point we were talking about Mason Miller being

I I did as a potential Cy Young candidate because he had the ridiculous start, and obviously a reliever winning a Cy Young can happen. So the Bru the Brewers and you know I I really like the Padres and I and I don't know what they do now because you know they they they they kind of came back and they still fell short, and it seems like they're just not in the right, you know, place right now to make the next step. They're in the whole bunch of other teams on they're they're like the fifth.

And they're a team that's getting older in the bad kind of ways. And I don't really know how they fix that because they've already got all their might money tied up too. AJ Prellor's a clever guy, but his his work is oftentimes done before the trading deadline. And eventually all of these trades is gonna come back and bite you. Right, right. So happy, you know, that the Brewers are there. that the Dodgers obviously took care of the Braves in in four games. and Chris Sale, who you know had to be had to win the game that he pitched.

Almost Cooperstown (02:52.937)
And he pitched well enough in that game, but they ended up losing that game that he started even you know, though he he did did okay. And I think the Dodgers just ended up being too much and the Braves lack of hitting was alarming and and Ronald Akuna Jr. leading that charge of guys that and and most of the Braves actually didn't hit right. Right, that's why I exceed for Michael Harris. Right right. And it's tough with Acuna because it's like he was good great for them for most of the year. But there's so many guys in that lineup that are feast or famine hitters and you know, when they get hot

They can win a World Series, but it's hard for everybody on the team to get collectively hot like that. The only pass I'll give the Brazes, as I've been mentioning all along, you know, no Strider, no Spencer Schwellenbach. So they're missing some of their top because they they had to patch it together with the arms they did. But realistically, they really needed to find a win one of the won one of those first two bullpen games to have a chance in that series. And as soon as they had lost both of those, you renew they really didn't have it. And Tyler Molly, you know, surprised me and a lot of people, probably not himself though, pitching so great for them, and even

In the last game, he pitched well enough, they just couldn't hold on. Exactly. So they're through. the Yankees got bounced by the Rays in three straight games and looked bad doing it. Right, right. That looked like the bad version of the Yankee team that we had seen throughout points of this year. And when you look at them and you go, yeah, no judge, I'm not that surprised. That team without him is not nearly as dynamic a team. And even with the good pitching, you know, you they they pitched well enough to win, but they didn't feel their hit well enough to win. And as good as the Whites are

season was right and then they they made the playoffs they led the division for most of the year they won a playoff series right seventy five times in five games well i was gonna say first they won the first two games of the series and then and i think you thought at that point that you know they could still lose this and they did they did and that's gotta be real painful seventy five strikeouts so they struck out twenty one times in the in the fifth and and final game against against Cleveland they struck out nineteen times in game three that's forty strikeouts in two games right which

But that's that was the weakness as a team. And that's where, you know, when you look at all of these things when we talk about three true outcomes and all of that. When you're a team that heavily relies on that

Almost Cooperstown (05:02.049)
That's the danger. Unlike a team that puts the ball in play and gets guys on base where things can happen. If you strike out a ton as a team, guess what? There's gonna be games where you strike out a ton as a team and nobody's ever on base and you look absolutely inept on offense. So I I'd say you've got the teams left playing the best. that that's pretty evident. Certainly between the Rays, the Brewers, and the Dodgers, I

Say so. I'm unsure of where I put in the Guardians, but it sort of felt like somebody from the American League was someone had to beat those White Sox, and they and and they did. And so I'm I'm happy Cleveland's trying to win its first World Series since 1948. The Brewers have never won a World Series. The Rays have never won a World Series. And the Dodgers are and the Dodgers are the two-time defending champions. So you know it it is it seems like a mismatch. It seems like a mismatch in in game one. The Dodgers are gonna go out with Tarek Scuble and he's gonna face misery.

So that's you it's gonna be something that's gonna have happened tonight. So we'll watch it. We don't know the outcome. Right, yeah. We're looking forward to it. So it's gonna be an amazing, you know, amazing game to watch, and hopefully it'll be everything that it's cracked up to be. But they'll roll out Yamamoto in game two instead of putting out Blake Snell who'll go in game three. I I'll say you you you started by saying so what do you think? And so what I think is is that I think people can almost be sleeping on the Dodgers a little bit here. I feel like, well, you know, they're not as good. The other teams are better.

Shohe doesn't look like himself, you know. Mookie's a little older, you know. No, no. I think I I believe that Sohei is gonna be heard from, and this is the time you're gonna hear from from here all the way through the rest of the playoffs. And I think people are like, yeah, he was really good, that Otani guy. Yeah, we forgot. He's a good player. So that that's that's what I think we're going we're going forward. I think that

You know, we have some news this week that we should talk about of the week, and that is that finally the mej the major league owners made a proposal to the players. The first one, and it's immediately changing, and it's a big change that I'm sure people are gonna be. We haven't talked about this at all. I I I I sorry we're gonna see hundred and sixty-two game season done. We're going to a hundred and fifty four games, but the divisional series moves to a seven game series. So the they're taking, you know, eight games.

Almost Cooperstown (07:18.057)
Off the calendar, which is roughly five percent of the season. and then that. And and one of the players came on the other day, Pete Fairbanks, I think he's a player rep, and he goes, Yeah, well, they kind of do stuff like that. You know, if they if they take eight games off the schedule, what they're gonna want us to take is eight percent less a five percent less salary. So he goes, So you know, we don't like that so much. You know, so then and so this is their first foray, but that wasn't the the the the divisional series thing going seven games for more playoff revenue. That makes sense. They're gonna give them Mondays off. Now I think they're gonna play like one.

national game on Monday and then the other teams will be off every Monday all season long is the the concept. Which I actually don't hate having a Sunday night game as a focus and then a special Monday night game as a focus. It's a good way to have a national game of the week. Yeah. But you're gonna get more like and having everybody always have off on Mondays is nice for the players and now you get to plan your travel a little bit more, except for the odd occasion where you're one of the teams. Yeah, I I guess you know from the standpoint of health and right and players having

Them have a day of rest every week. You know, sounds pretty good, but I think it was Eduardo Perez who said on the lead off spot this week goes, you know, as a player goes, that's nice. He goes, but it doesn't make me want to have a salary cap. No, yeah, but I don't think I don't think the the Mondays off would be something like that would be a good foray into being like, well, we're giving you Mondays off. that's totally what they're doing, he's saying they're trying to So the owner's dancing going, Well, can have Mondays off, guys. You know, but we gotta have the salary cap. Yeah, but yeah, yeah, okay. I gotta think the owners and then.

And then they did something else that I I think is I I don't know why people don't dislike this as much as I do. So what the new plan is is that in the playoffs the higher seated team is gonna get to choose the opponent.

So, you know, that's that's the plan going forward. Right. So let's say that it's the you know, the the the highest seeded the play teams this year is the Milwaukee Brewers. and so they would have had the choice in the division round of choosing to play either the Padres, the Dodgers, or the Braves. They might have chosen the Padres, but the point is is that the the they're gonna have a whole show they're gonna make up about when they choose who they're going to play that LeBron and the decision or something like that. And so it's this it to me it's it's so schmalty.

Almost Cooperstown (09:30.009)
And and just like okay, ca and so we're gonna create this drama so then there's gonna be real animosity 'cause the team that they chose is gonna take offense, you know, that you chose us instead of the other guys. So now we're really gonna wanna beat you. It's it's very fake like like come on. U especially because i in baseball there's not enough of stylistic differences between teams.

Where you're gonna be like, that's a really interesting matchup that just got generated because of that. Or like, okay, the better team doesn't pick a worse team because they think they match up better against somebody. That doesn't really happen in baseball. They're just gonna pick the number the worst team 99.9% of the time. So it's just gonna so we can have a dumb extra thing to act like this is some kind of of interesting situation. I I get why they're doing it. It makes sense because sometimes there are situations where you as the one seed.

We'll be well, we'd rather play this other team than the team we're getting to play. But like, I don't think it really adds anything. I don't, I don't like it. It's a gimmick to me. That's that's all it is. and again, another sort of the like like I don't even know how the players like what does that have to do with you guys trying to impose a salary cap on us, by the way? Right, I mean nothing. I don't think it has anything to do with that. Right. So, you know, the the salary cap and and everybody is, I would say at this point, it sounds like like 95%. So this this deal that they put out there was the intent to get this done before December.

December first. So this is what the major Major League Baseball put out to the players, going, you guys sign this deal, we're done.

Yeah, and the players are not signing that deal. They haven't gotten back to them with a with a counter proposal yet or a a I guess a referendum on what they think about it. But I think we pretty much know that, you know and they didn't say in this th th th that they were gonna have a salary cap. Right, that's that didn't s they didn't say that. Right, they didn't say that. They're basically saying, Hey, players, we're willing to punt on this if you want. I don't know that that's it. I just think they you know the full breadth of the proposal is not, you know, out there just yet. Right, right. But if there was a salary cap hidden in the details, the players yeah, yeah.

Almost Cooperstown (11:25.795)
No, no, The players would not have la waited this long. Trust me. I don't think there's some giant poison pill in there that we've not been told about at this point. I think largely any of the most interesting things have been reported on. So I think that mostly it's the owners going to the players being like, you know what, we'll we'll we'll

We'll we'll table this whole economic discussion for another year. Maybe we're not ready to have that yet, and we'll just roll into this next year with this one. And so as as we wake up here on Monday morning when this podcast drops, and you'll have played two one game each in both of the league championship series, meaning that they could go six games you know more each, that's six and six and seven. So there's nineteen more possible baseball games that are on the calendar before we don't know when there's gonna be another major league baseball game. You know, it's scheduled for March, but at this

point I think everybody's ninety percent sure that there's gonna be something in in and some sort of a work stoppage starting on December first, which is just gonna mess up everything. So w all I'm saying is everybody enjoy it right now. The playoffs have been fun, they've been interesting. They've been a little wild and wacky to me in that and I'm not doing Jason Stark here.

We which is weird and wild. It's it's the the whole pitching thing starting with all these openers starting all these games. guys, you know, the White Sox basically were looking into the stands for people to come and throw it. I'm joking, but it just seemed like they had gone through so many pitches they got a pretty good game. But I I just I'm I I'm a little bit like I you know, of of all this I thought a game is maybe okay to do with a you know, bullpen game, but it seems like almost half the games are bullpen games. Right, but that's because there aren't that many there's not g enough good starting pitchers. Like

Like it the same way Well and the teams like the White Sox and the Braves were hurting in that area to begin with. The Dodgers got plenty. Right, but the same way you as a Met fan were sitting here going, like, okay, well, I'm okay with like maybe one of my pitchers in in a playoff game. I think basically

Almost Cooperstown (13:15.229)
Every team except the Dodgers are like that. They're the and maybe the Yankees. Every other team has like one, maybe two stars. And the Brewers have two that you really count on, right? They have Mizernowski and Logan Henderson. and and after that it's like, well, I don't know. It's gonna be most teams don't have four guys. They're happy to go run out there and start in a playoff game. So I think the idea that we're not gonna see lots of bullpen style games because the bullpen style game is more effective than running Chris Bassett out there.

But it it it does present situations where like the the last game of the Guardian series that just now I I I saw Cade Smith come in and and and you know, he had pitched so much that he couldn't get anybody out in game f in game four, and they ended up winning the game i i in the end. But in game five, I thought, okay, they're gonna bring him out. They're going, Well, what could he have left? He had a lot left. Right. He looked great, he pitched almost two innings and I'm like, I don't get this. I don't know how they you know, guys can look so bad 'cause they're exhausted in one game and and two days later, I'm good. 'Cause sometimes that's what it is. Sometimes

It's just like like we forget that you know what? Sometimes for other guys, you're just you just wake up and you don't have it that day.

That happens to these guys. Sometimes you just wake up and it doesn't matter. You just you don't have it on a particular day. And then sometimes you do wake up and you have it. And we've seen it. You see it with starters. You could see it tonight with Mizarowski and Scoobyl. One of them could just have it tonight. And it doesn't really matter what you do as an opposing team. They just are gonna get you out every single time. And it and that that happens. It's just harder and harder to do that because the guys are so good at hitting that

It's really difficult to throw a full game like that. And guys that unless you're the Dodgers. Right. And even they don't have a lot of guys that can do that. I mean, none of their guys have really done that this postseason. no, I don't think I I don't I don't think Yamamoto has gone eight yet. You're right. And and it's funny you I I was mentioning him anyway, because he has the highest win loss percentage postseason for MLP but pitchers with ten or more starts in major league history. Right. So you know Yamamoto

Almost Cooperstown (15:17.049)
Has the chance to go down as one of the greatest if he's not in that conversation already with another great league championship series and another great World Series. Like that's that's like becoming Hall of Fame stuff, and he's not been around long enough to be a Hall of Fame. Right, right, but but we also have to remember to pump the brakes because 10 and 3, he's done great in his first 10 present starts. But you you want to know who the number five on that list is Nathan Ovaldi, because he's nine and three in 12 postseason starts. And I don't think you're not about to sit here and suggest that Nathan Ovaldi a ready for the Hall of Fame.

fame suit. No, no, I I would not. But I also think Yamamoto has a better resume overall than Yavaldi. he's got to get to twenty. If he's

Fifteen and five when it gets to twenty. Then all of a sudden I'm like, okay, yeah, because when you look at him, I'm much more impressed by Kurt Schilling being eleven and two and nineteen starts, or Smoltz being fifteen and four and twenty-seven starts. Right, right. Those are much more impressive because that is a much bigger body of work. It is interesting on this list because you do have Red Ruffing who pitched for the Yankees back in the nineteen thirties, who's got twenty who's got ten starts and he's g seven and two, but Yavaldi Orlando Hernandez, El Duco

Madison Bungar, recent pitchers, Hirschheiser, Jim Palmer's probably one of the older ones on this list. David Cohen, Ron Gidry, Chris Carpenter, Roy Oswald. Well, part of that is just because that's You get more starts when you're in the playoffs. Right. So he used to only be able to do it in the World Series. So you have got you have Chris Carpenter, Roy Oswalt, Cliff Lee, and Josh Beckett, and Levon Hernandez as a run of guy. Both El Duque and his brother, right? All solid pitchers, but how many of those guys are Hall of Famers? No, well exactly. Well, and and Yamamoto's got a long way to go. I didn't mean to overstate that.

He's just been there a couple of years. I wanted to mention something that I noticed this week. and we mentioned that Gabriel Moreno of the Diamondbacks, the catcher, came back and snatched the batting title in the National League from Luis Arries in the last, I don't know, week or so of the season. what I didn't realize is that he's only the fifth catcher, the fifth different catcher in the modern year to win a batting title. Right, right, because we have had a couple catchers, we've had two different catchers win batting titles multiple times. And one of them I think most people would get. I don't think a lot of people are getting the older people.

Almost Cooperstown (17:32.992)
People might get the other one. I would get, you know, Ernie the Schnazz Lombardi, one one back to back. This the slowest player in baseball who apparently I looked it up and I thought that he had been thrown out at right and from right field multiple times at first base because he was that slow, but it's it's not true. Right, right. I I was thinking about that. I was just like he did get thrown out. I mean it might have happened, but it wasn't anything that happened regularly. Right, right. If it was a thing that it was regular, he probably wouldn't play because it would be hard to be that slowly. So he won two and Maurer won three. One three. Including back to back in O eight and nine.

I said, you know, I should remember that. That guy was good. The reason why he made the Hall of Fame. So Gab Marino, Buster Posey, has a batting title, which and Bubbles Hargrave. Yeah, what a great name, right? Right. Bubbles Hargrave in nineteen twenty six for the Cincinnati Reds. And you didn't hear about it because the Reds didn't do anything that year. And it was also nineteen twenty six. It was nineteen twenty six, a hundred years ago was Bubbles. So let's let's turn to our story of the week. Right. We we kind of briefly touched on it previously, and then we decided to kind of do a

With it because it's the story of the week. But was interesting because we talked about Austin Hedges and his change in approach, and how his biggest switch this year was taking or called third strikes.

And so we wanted to does that actually make a difference or guys that take do they like d is taking called more third strikes have any kind of impact on what you are as a hitter? And and so, you know, did some research and to come up with it and the Evans it's not super conclusive, but it's conclusive in that the guys that take third strikes walk more, have higher on base averages by, you know, you know, ten percent or so than the league average. So you are you are getting on base more because you're doing that.

and what Hedges was saying was that, you know, I'm I d I give feeble swings when I'm with two strikes and what I want to eliminate with a feeble swing. Right. And so you're just to look at it, in twenty twenty five about twenty four percent of the strikeouts were looking, about seventy six percent were either swinging or on a foul tip.

Almost Cooperstown (19:31.081)
And so that's what you're looking at in terms of the breakdown. So about a quarter of them are looking. And so, you know, the the guys that had you know on base, you know, that I think it like from two, lem let me get the exact figures here.

Yeah, it's up twenty twenty four points. So so twenty three let's let me get this right.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So what so what's up twenty-three points? The the the b the on base average. So your on base average goes up twenty-three points when? When you when when you are are somebody who's in the top quartile of taking call third strikes. Okay, so if you take a lot of courts call third strikes, you're bases. So you're walking more. So you are being called and so the hardest thing for the fan, and we we talked about this is is is watching a guy take a call third strike because your general reaction as a fan is why didn't you swing at it? You can't hit it if you don't swing. Right.

This is something and this is something that is it is ingrained in players from when they are little. From little league on, we're t we we're coaching kids that taking a called third strike is like

the worst thing that you can do when realistically it has the exact same value as a swinging strikeout. Still a strikeout. Still a strikeout. It's still just one out. There is no difference in terms of what the value of the out that you make is. And we you know, we met fans still lament Carlos Beltron taking the call third strike from Adam Rain Wainwright in in the seventh game of the National League Championship series in two thousand and six. it was a great pitch. You and I were there. We sat and we watched it going, Yeah, I wished he had swung, but that was a good pitch.

Almost Cooperstown (21:03.791)
Guy guy snapped off a nasty curveball, just dropped one. And so it makes you feel like, and Beltran w wore that for a while because he should have swung. He should have swung. Well, hey he probably wasn't gonna hit it anyway. and and D, you know, the idea is that he might what kind of a swing would he have put on the ball when he's fooled that badly in the first place. Right. And if you want to kind of dive into this, let's look at twenty twenty six here. When we look at the guys that had the highest percentage of looking strikeouts. So that's Steven Kwan still playing Taylor Ward, Seiya Suzuki, Chandler Simpson.

Still playing. Ellie DeCrue. Ellie De La Cruz. Now, the interesting thing is we look at those five guys. Those would be five guys we all would describe as having pretty good seasons. Kwan led them, striking out about 48% of his strikeouts. Looking, looking. That's impressive. There's that much of a strikeout. Now he doesn't strike out much. Right, right. Ward was 44%. Suzuki 40. Chandler Simpson 39%. Ellie Day LaCruz. And it is interesting because Suzuki does strike out a lot. And now they're on base percentages. All of these guys, the lowest was Chandler Simpson at 333. The highest was Steven Kwan at 382. So these guys were all guys getting a

Base pretty regularly. They're all guys you would describe as at least acceptable to good on base percentages. None of them are in the elite percentages of on base, which is the guys that are at 400. Right. But there are you 380. When you're 360 and above, you're pretty good. So take the converse. When you take the converse, guys with the lowest percentage. These are guys that they are the freest swingers. So we're talking about Ernie Clement, Ezekiel Tovar, Andres Jimenez. So these guys none of those guys will surprise anybody when they swing freely.

All of these guys, the now the highest on this list, Jaron Duran at 11.5% of his strikeouts are looking. Ernie Clement, only 6.9% of his strikeouts are looking. But look at the on-base averages. All of these guys have an on-base under 300. So it's telling you that guys that are really, really free swingers don't usually have great on-base percentages, which when you think about it, just sort of makes sense. And here's here's the those five guys that we just mentioned, Clement, Tovar, Jimenez, and Albies, and Duran, they're not power hitters. So you're not selling out

And either and for on base power to hit home runs. And neither were necessarily the guys on the flip side that were the highest percentage. Right? No, they're not. Suzuki. Right, right. So obviously there's a middle ground, but what it's telling when you're seeing that is being more selective at the plate and looking more, because this is what Hedges said is he was trying to avoid decelerating on two strike swings. And that comes from being defensive and just trying to foul it off. Because realistically, what's the worst thing that you can do when you're just trying to foul it off? There's two things that

Almost Cooperstown (23:33.28)
That can happen that are absolutely terrible. You just don't make contact. Miss it entirely. Right. Well, you put it in play. Yeah. And that's gonna be weak. And and and think about how many times you've seen guys weekly ground out or weekly line out or weekly pop out on a defensive swing because they were just trying not to strike out. And you know what? Yeah, sometimes the guy's gonna freeze you because you're trying to zone up a pitch still on Owen two, and he snaps off a slider and drops one in. Sometimes you're just gonna have to tip your cap and go, yeah.

Be get used to just tipping my cap going, good pitch. Right. Basically, without saying it that way. Right. And sometimes he's gonna get me. But by doing that, that means more often on two strikes, when you do make contact, it's gonna be good contact. How many times do you see guys? It's in as a fan, right? You know, I'm not I'm not doing any mathematical things here. You know, swing at that third strike, you know, weakly wave at the ball that's clearly out of the strike zone. It's a slider that didn't even come close. He got so fooled and all kind of and he's swung. Had he not swung at the pitch, it would have been a ball. Right, and you know he's swinging at that because he's trying to defend against.

And striking out on something, and then he just flails at the thing. So the players have to consider based on what Audin Austin hedges did, which make himself into, I think it was like a hundred, you know, WRC, so he went to from below average to just an average player, which is certainly big for him. And and I think that other players are going to follow this and think, okay, I have to get more comfortable with striking out without swinging. It's been something they've drilled into me my whole life not to do.

I need to make a change because I'm hurting myself by doing that. That has to be, you know, the conclusion that players have to make and it's hard. Mm-hmm. And I was actually curious because I wanted to go and look at like when you look at a guy like, you know.

Juan Soto. Like when he's striking out because he he's not a guy that strikes out a lot. But is he a guy that, you know, strikes out a lot swinging or looking comparatively? And I'm trying I try to bring up his numbers here and I'm not able to grab it quickly enough, unfortunately. But it just isn't just to think about because obviously there's a trade-off where there's a certain percentage where you're not swinging enough. You're letting too many balls go by you. And that's what you see with some of those guys that a lot of those guys you get passive. Right. And you're do you're it's difficult to probably hit with power because you're not ever trying to anticipate the ball as much and you're gonna have to

Almost Cooperstown (25:45.46)
Take some gambles to swing with maximum vel with maximum, you know, power to try and drive the ball there. Right. It's that fine line between fouling off a tough pitch that actually could be a strike, versus swinging feebly at something that isn't just because you're afraid to strike out without swinging at all. So yeah, I think the you know, the the the evidence is pretty clear that better on base averages happen with guys that are a little more discerning at not swinging at at a pitch that they can't hit in the first place. So and Ted Williams used to talk about the unhill.

strike, you know, saying that sometimes you have to take the pitch because you can't hit it even if it is a strike. R right, exactly. Sometimes there's nothing you can do because like we were saying, like we've seen guys just drop in perfect pitches before. It happens and sometimes you can't do anything about that.

Okay. so let's t just talk about a little bit the next couple of weeks. We're going to have a an author, Phil Coffin, on the podcast. He wrote a book called Thirty One Days that we both enjoyed a lot, which is obviously a baseball book and there's thirty-one days in a month. I think that's the reason why it's called Thirty One Days, but we'll we will ask him. That'll come on next week and then gonna take a little time off, a week off during the W I'm not gonna be around for the start of the World Series, which is really out of the head. Heavy on my mind, you know, that I'm gonna have to how am I gonna follow this and this

I'm six hours you know ahead, which is bad. I I know the only thing that kind of makes me a little upset is there's six hours ahead because now I can't send you fake updates to try and mess with you. No, no, it's gonna be the the morning there. So I've never really kind of remember being away and not being able to sort of follow the World Series you know from a foreign country. I'll be able to follow updates and stuff like that. But the closest I remember is we took a vacation during the earlier parts of the playoffs because I remember being in Mexico for Todd Pratt's home run against the Diamondbacks in nineteen ninety.

ninety nine because I remember watching him hit the ball. So but en enjoy enjoy the next couple of weeks folks we'll be back with the podcast on November first that will be sort of at the end of the World Series. It might be a world series record could be a world series recap so enjoy