We will be referring to the Cardinals by these nicknames from now on - A Hunt and Peck

The Cardinals first postseason game of 2020 starts in a few hours so I want to keep this short and hopefully sweet. Today several of my esteemed collogues have already published their analysis, predications, and hopes for the series. So, of course you will not find any of that here. Per tradition, what you will find from me will be much more idiotic.

Dan Szymborski of Fangraphs is a treasure. Not only is he the creator of the ZiPS projections that we know and love so much, but he is also a creator of silly, clever Internet things. His lastest work of art has been using a neural network to generate nicknames for the playoff teams. They are fantastic.

I would like to call special attention to Andrew “Meth Machine” Miller, but all of them are pretty incredible. My name was ran through this as well (my real name, not my already established nickname) and my nickname turned out to be “Hit Girl”, which is my favorite thing to happen so far today. You can run your own here: https://app.inferkit.com/demo

A heads up, though, courtesy of VEB member brackinthebox: “that page will put a bunch of other stuff after it... you need an account to limit it to only give you a bit... and it runs out of free usages relatively quickly”. So keep that in mind.

A big hat tip to brackinthebox for showing me this and unknowingly giving me this idea to steal for my post today.

Today we got Kwang Hyun Kim, aka The Brick, facing off against Chris “The Sandman” Paddock. Should be fun!

what else is going on in baseball...

Devin Williams not on NL Wild Card Series roster | MLB.com

Ranking all 8 Wild Card games Wednesday | MLB.com

Here’s Who Is Going to Win the 2020 World Series (Maybe) | FanGraphs Baseball

Presenting the Low-Seed Playoff Dark Horses | FanGraphs Baseball

Lucas Giolito Confounds the A’s | FanGraphs Baseball

what the cardinals are up to...

Cardinals' keys, concerns for 2020 postseason | St. Louis Cardinals

KNOW THINE ENEMY...

the san diego padres

Cardinals prepare for Chris Paddack in Wild Card Series | St. Louis Cardinals

Padres Postseason Prep: Know Thy Enemy | Gaslamp Ball

NL Wild Card Series Preview: St. Louis Cardinals vs. San Diego Padres | FanGraphs Baseball

Padres finalize NL Wild Card Series roster | MLB.com