A brief recap of the last 72 hours on a variety of topics including sports, news and personal events.

Goodbye Guardians … And Thank-You

Five days ago the New York Yankees defeated the Cleveland Guardians in a decisive Game Five of the American League Divisional Series.  The loss ended the Guardians season, one that very few predicted would have made it all the way until October 19th.  

The season started ominously enough when the newly minted Guardians sign came crashing down outside of the team shop.  But players like Steven Kwan, Oscar Gonzalez, Triston McKenzie, Emmanuel Clase, Andres Gimenez and Josh Naylor made for an enjoyable and entertaining summer.  Winning 22 of their last 27 games left the rest of the American League Central in their dust.

This Cleveland Guardians team was so much fun to watch as they battled all year long until the final out.  I had been clamoring for the front office to finally buy in to the youth movement and while it may have been realized out of simple necessity, we all reaped the benefits.  

As we head into 2023, the Guardians only have a few questions to answer but they are very important ones.

1.  Will Amed Rosario play out his final year of his contract?
2. Will Bo Naylor be their opening day starter at catcher?
3. Will the Guardians look to add a 1B/DH or look to fill that position internally?
4. Will the Guardians look to add another quality starting pitcher?

Depending on how they answer those questions will go a long way towards dictating their direction next year in which expectations will have been rightfully raised.  Personally, I’d answer those questions as follows:

1. No.  His trade value will never be higher and the Guardians have a plethora of depth in the middle infield. 
2. Unquestionably yes.  The fact he made the playoff roster and never made an appearance didn’t make sense.
3. Look to fill internally.  Jose Abreu looks good on paper, but the Guardians have some of their highest rated players on the cusp of the big leagues.  Give George Valera and Bo Naylor the opportunity to add more power.
4. They should.  Carlos Rodon would have looked great in a Guardians uniform this past year.  While I think Cody Morris has potential to be a solid #4/#5 starter, I’d be surprised if Zach Plesac is on the Opening Day roster.   

Baseball was fun again and for that, I am grateful.  October baseball was nerve-wracking and often times unbearable, but those pressure-packed feelings can be precious and I am extremely thankful for getting the opportunity.  While I doubt the Dolans had any of this planned, a strong-youthful – and now experienced – roster is at their disposal.  

Don’t screw it up.  Which reminds me … 

Can the Browns just skip straight to 2023?

When the final ruling in the Deshaun Watson case determined he would miss the first 11 games of the season it was a devastating blow.  Jacoby Brissett – while a fine and reliable backup QB – was going to have a difficult time navigating 2/3 of the year on his own. 

The hope was that the Browns defense would help him out.  The hope was that Nick Chubb and a strong offensive line would carry the majority of the offense.  The hope was that a revitalization of the special teams would provide a value add.  The hope was that a strong and unified coaching staff, now intact for the third consecutive year, would provide stability and be able to effectively manage both the game and the roster.

After falling short to the Baltimore Ravens 23-20 and falling to 2-5 on the season, it’s official.

All hope is gone.  This season is over.  And it’s not because of Brissett – at all.

Under a different regime Nick Chubb would be discussed as a MVP candidate.  On this team, he can go nearly 20 minutes of game-time without a carry (which he did last Sunday).  The defense has been a hindrance all season and has directly cost the team at least one win (New York Jets).  The coaching staff has made questionable decisions every game and resembles one that has zero in-game experience.  The special teams unit – outside of Cade York’s game-winner against the Panthers – have been absolutely dreadful.  

Deshaun Watson is not going to fix anything in that previous paragraph.  Yes, he is a dynamic athlete who can use his legs and his arm strength to escape and create in ways Brissett can’t.  But he has absolutely zero to do with all of the rest … or does he?

When you give someone in the NFL an unprecedented $230 million dollar contract, fully guaranteed, it gives that player power that has never been seen in that league.  He has become, not just the face of that franchise, but the one in control of it as well.  

Let’s say Watson doesn’t gel with Kevin Stefanski.  Who do you think is leaving?  Bye-bye Kevin.  Let’s say Watson gets into a disagreement with John Johnson during practice and they end up in a fist-fight.  Pack your bags Johnny.  If Watson doesn’t like the direction Andrew Berry is going from a front-office perspective, then Mr. Berry will be shown the door. 

So yes, Watson may not be able to directly fix any of the major issues that plague this team, but he certainly can make things interesting if he so chooses.  There’s no playbook for this kind of contract in the NFL.  Everyone will be watching.

I’m just going to leave this picture of an unhappy Nick Chubb up until I feel Stefanski understands what he’s doing wrong.   Last week I talked about some questionable decision making by Kevin Stefanski, and yesterday he did it again – this time coming on a crucial 4th down decision in the 2nd half.  

For the Browns to hit the 5-6 mark needed to make Watson’s reappearance interesting, they need to win three of their next four against the following:

1. Home vs. Bengals
2. Away vs. Dolphins
3. Away vs. Bills
4. Home vs. Buccaneers

Barring a Josh Allen injury, there’s absolutely no way they beat the Buffalo Bills on the road.  So, can they sweep the Bengals, Dolphins and Bucs?  If you feel they can, I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell to you. 

Odds and Ends

Notre Dame rebounded from their staggeringly disappointing loss to Stanford with a pretty ordinary victory against UNLV.  They are now 4-3 on the season with five games remaining (at Syracuse, vs Clemson, at Navy, vs Boston College, at USC). 

While nothing has been automatic with the Irish, it appears they are headed towards a 6-6 season.  That kind of record will have them headed to the Pinstripe Bowl against a team like Iowa.  And while I like to think myself a pretty strong and loyal fan, there’s no way I’m watching Iowa try to play football for four quarters.  

Finished Stephen King’s Fairy Tale this past week and will be recapping that at the end of my Stephen King book rankings.  My latest reading comes from Neil deGrasse Tyson and his new book, “Starry Messenger: Cosmic Perspective on Civilization.”  It’s a tremendous read and highly recommended.   

Watched Jordan Peele’s Nope the other night and while it certainly has some memorable moments and dialogue it did not resonate with me like his previous two films (Get Out, Us).  Don’t get me wrong, it was enjoyable and kept me engaged, but it definitely ranks third in my Jordan Peele rankings.

Until next time, peace be the journey.

A brief recap of the last 72 hours on a variety of topics including sports, news and personal events.

3 Runs … 2 Homers … 1 Series Win

The Wild Card Series was brand new this year and of course I thought my team was screwed by this renovated format.  As you’re about to see, this thinking is deep rooted in personal experience. 

For instance – in 1995 (the first year of the Wild Card), the Indians had won a major-league leading 100 games.  However, MLB instituted a ridiculous rule that included a home-field advantage rotation amongst divisions.  Because of this, the Indians never had home-field advantage once during the 1995 postseason.

In 2020, the Indians won the Wild Card in the pandemic-shortened season, but MLB allowed 8 teams from each league to make the playoffs.  This meant that instead of playing the White Sox in a winner-take-all game, the Indians had to play the Yankees (and were immediately bounced).  

This year – with another silly MLB change (at least I initially thought) – we now added another Wild Card team and introduced the Wild Card Series.  So, instead of the division-winning Guardians automatically advancing to the ALDS (as they would have every year since 1995), they were forced to play a best-of-three against the Tampa Bay Rays.

You can imagine my speculation when Jose Siri hit a homerun in the top of the 6th in Game One to give the Rays a 1-0 lead.  My head immediately went spinning with some of these absurd rule changes and how my team always got the short end of the stick.  How I was to know that the Rays would not score another run in the series?!? 

Jose Ramirez hit a two-run homer in Game One and then Oscar Gonzalez blasted a solo shot in the bottom of the 15th to win Game Two and the series.  As expected, both games were extremely close and full of drama despite the low scores (2-1, 1-0).  Game Two was historic on multiple levels as it was the first postseason game in MLB history to be scoreless after 13 innings.  My son Jack’s favorite player is Oscar Gonzalez because of his Spongebob Squarepants walk-up song.  Every time he comes up to bat my son starts singing along.  As I told him when he approached the plate for the sixth time, “He could end it with one swing.” 

And then he did. 

We went crazy.  We blasted Spongebob on the speakers.  We danced.  It was awesome.  Jack had recently learned what the word “chaos” meant, so it was only appropriate that after everything settled down, he said, “Dad, that was chaos.”

Welcome to postseason baseball Jack.  

Browns Lose … To Themselves … Again

Last week the Cleveland Browns dropped a three-point game to the Atlanta Falcons by having a swiss-cheese defense and continuing to shoot themselves in the foot on offense.  Yesterday, the Cleveland Browns dropped a two-point game to the Los Angeles Chargers by having a swiss-cheese defense and continuing to shoot themselves in the foot on offense.  They are nothing if not consistent.  Let me correct that, they are nothing if not soul-crushing.  

Last week I also talked about leaving Nick Chubb – who is clearly, and unmistakably, the best player on the Cleveland Browns – on the bench in game-winning drives.  And yet again, Coach Stefanski made the same decision against the Chargers.  This one was even more egregious as they were gifted a short-field with 90 seconds left and were still in position to run the ball. 

On a macro level, only running Chubb 17 times is mind-boggling.  If the goal of these games is to win, I would think that number could have been easily increased.

I’m just going to leave this picture of an unhappy Nick Chubb up until I feel Stefanski understands what he’s doing wrong.   Last week I talked about some questionable decision making by Kevin Stefanski, and yesterday he did it again – this time coming on a crucial 4th down decision in the 2nd half.  

After the Chargers scored to take a 24-21 lead, the Browns faced a 4th and 1 from their own 34.  Stefanski went for it (right decision) but called a very suspicious play that included multiple pulling lineman (wrong decision).  And what do you know, it was blown up.  Jacoby Brissett is clearly limited in both his arm strength and mobility, but he is elite at one thing, the QB sneak.

Coming into this season, he was hitting at a 95% success-rate when he’s been asked to execute the QB sneak.  Coming into this game against the Chargers, he’s been perfect on the season.  And yet, I get the feeling that Stefanski wants to try and “outsmart” other coaches with some of these 4th down play-calls.  It doesn’t have to be rocket science.  Brissett can get one yard just laying down.  In fact, historically, teams have brought him off the bench in these exact situations.  I don’t know why Stefanski avoids it as much as he does.    

I know this looks like nit-picking, but when you don’t have a defense that can continually get stops, it makes every possession crucial.  You win by holding on to the ball and scoring – every time.  The Browns only had four 2nd half possessions in the Chargers game.  They scored on just one of them.  If they can get one more score, the game changes dramatically.  

I’m not sure the defense can be helped at this point.  The Browns did trade for Deion Jones, a linebacker from the Atlanta Falcons, but who knows how healthy and able he will be.  I guess anything will be better than Jacob Phillips, who is not a starting middle-linebacker in this league.  Cleveland brought a little of this on themselves by not investing anything in the LB or DT positions this offseason.  As a result, teams are having no issue just running the ball straight ahead.  

Like I mentioned last week, the goal should be at least 5-6 during Watson’s 11-game suspension but things don’t get any easier next week when the 2-3 New England Patriots come into town.  They may be short on talent, but they are well-coached and execute at a high level.  They spanked the Browns 45-7 last year and may be positioned to do the exact same in 2022.  

Odds and Ends

Congratulations to the Notre Dame Fighting Irish for their 28-20 win over #16 BYU on Saturday.  I’ve always been a fan of the Shamrock Series (although not with all of their uniform selections), and it was pretty cool to see them play a good team on a big stage out in Las Vegas.  No other team gets that opportunity, and it’s one of the main reasons Notre Dame loves their independence.  

Oh, and Michael Mayer might end up being the best TE in Notre Dame history.  That dude is amazing.  A lot of noise was directed at Marcus Freeman – and deservedly so – after his 0-2 start to the season, but I haven’t heard much on a national stage about Oklahoma’s new coach, Brent Venables.  The Sooners have been blown out in their last two games, including a 49-0 shutout courtesy of the Texas Longhorns.  They will ride a three-game losing streak into their contest against Kansas next week.  Rock Chalk Jayhawk.  Whatever that means.   

How has What We Do In The Shadows not won a single Emmy?  It’s been nominated 17 times, but has yet to take home any hardware.  It’s without question one of the funniest TV shows I’ve seen in the last decade.  Maybe I’m a couple years late to this, but could the Emmy’s make themselves irrelevant by continually picking the same small group of shows as winners?   

Until next time, peace be the journey.

A brief recap of the last 72 hours on a variety of topics including sports, news and personal events.

Cleveland Guardians – Brand New Playoff History

Say what you will about the Cleveland Guardians name-change, but one positive is that it pushes the reset button in terms of playoff history.  I was re-watching some Indians postseason moments prior to this post and not gonna lie, it felt a little weird hearing Bob Costas call them the Indians.  But it also gave me a renewed sense of spirit, because let’s be honest – the Indians were not on a roll when it came to recent playoff success.  Three times since reaching the World Series in 2016 the Indians had made the postseason.  Three times they were dropped in the first round.  The Cleveland Indians had lost four playoff series in a row, including eight straight games.  Dating back to Game 5 of the 2016 World Series, the Indians had a 2-11 record in the postseason.  But now, none of that matters.  Because these are the Cleveland Guardians, and the Guards have never made it to the playoffs.  They can re-write their own history starting next Friday.   

It seems likely the Guardians will face Tampa Bay in the Wild Card round (best two-out-of-three), which is the best-case scenario.  Seattle has had the Guards number all year (1-5 record) and Toronto could hit them out of the ballpark.  Tampa Bay is built very similarly to Cleveland.  They don’t hit a ton of homeruns, but they have very good pitching and will take extra bases.  You have to play solid baseball to beat Tampa Bay, which Cleveland is more than capable of doing. 

Cleveland has a 4-2 record against Tampa Bay this year, winning each three-game series.  Three of those games were decided by one run and the largest margin of victory was just three runs.  Expect close games in this series.

I have been clamoring for the Guardians to bring Bo Naylor up for months now, and he was finally added to the 40-man roster with a week left to go in the regular season.  Bo Naylor is a hard-hitting catcher who blasted 21 homeruns and stole 20 bases in the minor leagues this year (evenly split between AA and AAA).  He will undoubtedly be the Guardians starting catcher next year and should have been up in the majors before last week.  Better late than never.  When Naylor was brought up, it meant Bryan Shaw was let go.  So, let us pour one out for Mr. Shaw, who will likely never pitch again for the Cleveland Guardians.  An easy target by critics, but a dependable reliever who often pitched well in high-leverage situations.  Anyone who has made 700+ career appearances can’t possibly be a horrible pitcher all of the time.  And Shaw – while never an elite reliever – was very dependable and always available.  

I bought a scorebook to document the Guardians playoff run and am looking forward to teaching Jack how to score a game.  I’m not entirely sure when I picked up this skill, but from 1995-2001 I scored every playoff and opening day game.  One memorable night occurred in October of 1997 during Game One of the ALDS between the Indians and the New York Yankees. 

Having to wake up for school the next day I was not allowed to stay up and watch the entire game, but as the Indians had raced out to a 6-2 lead after four innings, I felt comfortable with the game situation and asked my dad to finish keeping score.  Oh, to be young and naive again.  When I woke up the next morning, my groggy eyes stared at the final score in disbelief.  8-6 Yankees.

“Dad, what happened?”

“Look at the bottom of the 6th.”

My dad had penciled in three consecutive home runs for the Bronx Bombers which gave them the lead they would never relinquish.  Needless to say, I never let my dad finish scoring another game again.

Browns Lose … To Themselves

The Cleveland Browns lost to the Atlanta Falcons 23-20, but the reality is they simply lost to themselves.  They lost with a pass-happy play-caller and a defenseless defense.  If the Browns are going to be successful either this year or in future seasons, they can’t afford to lose to teams like the Atlanta Falcons and the New York Jets.  They’ve managed to accomplish both within the first month of the season.  

I’m not the type of fan who will scream and yell for Nick Chubb to play the entire game, but he’s spent too much of potential game-winning drives on the bench in the last couple of years.  I understand that in certain pass-catching situations the Browns would rather have Kareem Hunt, but to have your best offensive weapon on the sideline in the final minutes of the game doesn’t make much sense to me. Twice the Browns had the ball inside the Falcons five-yard line and they walked away with a total of 3 points.  Speaking of things that don’t make much sense, the decision to throw it on 4th and 3 from the 4-yard line was mind boggling.  While I do understand the importance of touchdowns, I also think the game should dictate decisions like that.  Playing against Patrick Mahomes and figure you need a lot of points to win the game?   Yeah, go for it.  But playing Marcus Mariotta and the Atlanta Falcons?  Take the early points.  Better yet, maybe utilize the best QB sneaker in the game on those short-yardage situations.  What do I know?

I hate sounding like a Monday Morning Quarterback, but those decisions should have been obvious.  I thought the Browns had a coach in place who understood what he was working with, but the more I watch Kevin Stefanski call plays, the more I think the team would be better served with Alex Van Pelt behind the wheel.

With Deshaun Watson suspended for seven more games, the Browns will need three more wins to at the very least still have something to play for when their star QB returns.  And if you look at their schedule (LAC, NE, @ BAL, CIN, @ MIA, @ BUF, TB) there are zero easy wins available.  Those were all used up in the first four weeks.  The Browns will have to split their home games (2-2) and hope for one road win to be 5-6 when Watson comes back, and the schedule lightens up.

Odds and Ends

Getting Notre Dame bye weeks often lead to some free time at the homestead.  With my wife having a spa day, it meant bro-time this past Saturday.  What did Jack want to do?  Watch me build an 800-piece Lego set.  Details to come in next week’s football picks.

Best college football game of the week?  There wasn’t one.  It was great seeing Kansas continue to roll and having Oklahoma lose is never not fun, but otherwise it was a rather mundane Saturday.  

Finished Nathan For You this weekend and it was absolutely spectacular.  Nathan can be a bit weird and the viewer is never sure if his shtick is real or just a shtick, but I loved the absurdity of it all and felt the series finale was completely captivating.  Up next in my ever-expanding TV lineup: finish What We Do In The Shadows and then check out Resurrection Dogs.  

Until next time, peace be the journey.