Arden Zwelling

So I think that they have to be very precise with when they pitch Varlin just because he is so effective and so valuable in earlier leverage spots prior to the ninth.

Like he can come in and bail you out of an inning.

that's turning pear-shaped in the seventh, and then return to face the heart of the order in the eighth.

I don't want to anchor him to one hitting and remove the possibility of just having that get-out-of-jail-free card that Louis Varlin has been so many times.

I also want to optimize matchups, and I don't want to expose the same reliever to the same pocket of hitters repeatedly twice.

in a series because I think there is a familiarity aspect there and I think it makes sense that if Ireland faces like the three four five spot in the lineup on Monday on Tuesday and if those it's the same hitters in those spots I might want like a Rogers or a Hoffman to face that pocket of the lineup because I just don't want them to have that repeated exposure

to one arm because we see this in playoff series all the time the more you see one reliever in a series i mean the the numbers go up and up and up so i want to just be a lot more precise and a lot more optimal with how i'm deploying guys late in the games for sure and i think you have a bit more breathing room there in a three game series as opposed to seven um just because you're not going to see them that many times um but point point taken there

Yeah, there's definitely some survivorship bias there when you're saying, well, why can't you just be Mason Miller?

Because nobody is Mason Miller.

Only Mason Miller is Mason Miller.

We see Edwin Diaz go through struggles.

We see Devin Williams, who was as consistent as anyone as a closer in this league, go through struggles.

I mean, Cade Smith has had tough periods.

Oh, yeah, absolutely.

I mean, we've seen tough periods for guys like Yohan Duran and just, you know, Robert Suarez.

Like, just name your late game reliever.

They go through stuff.

And right now, Jeff Hoffman's going through stuff.

And what makes me bet on Jeff Hoffman and the fact that I think he'll be better going forward is not only that just via his luck improving, his numbers are going to improve, but also he's very self-aware and he's very attentive to what's going on with his game.

And Shai and I talked to him