It’s the most wonderful time of the year: October baseball. As always in the playoffs, I’ve been keen to observe lineup construction and offensive personnel, particularly from a bat path perspective. Over the last few years especially, the matchup game has become more and more important as managers navigate the platoon advantage that comes from switching pitchers in and out of the game.

In 2023 and 2022, I explored how Vertical Bat Angle (VBA) can serve as a proxy for analyzing swing diversity in a team’s lineup. At first it started as a way of investigating why the Astros were so consistent in the playoffs, then it became a way for me to understand which lineups have the most versatility in bat path and handedness. In theory, the more versatility, the harder it is for a pitcher-catcher combination to game plan. If a lefty with a flat bat path hits ahead of a righty with a steep bat path — as is the case with Juan Soto and Aaron Judge — a pitcher is forced to execute two different approaches. If that variance carries through an entire lineup, good luck! Spoiler alert, I’m basically describing the Dodgers, but more on that later.

As I’ve said in countless blogs of mine, VBA is not a catch-all metric for describing bat path. Attack Angle (AA) and Vertical Entry Angle (VEA), among other metrics, are important for understanding the full story of each player’s path. But in this piece, I’m going to stick with just VBA because that’s what I’ve used for this piece in previous years. Here are a few key points that are important to rehash before showing the results.

For left-handed hitters, I made their average VBA negative to account for the fact that they swing from the other side of the plate. (VBA data is provided by SwingGraphs.) For switch-hitters, I multiplied their average VBA by -0.72 because the league-wide rate of switch-hitter plate appearances that come against righty pitchers — when they are batting lefty — is 72%. Additionally, even though I used regular-season VBA data, I included only hitters who’ve recorded at least one playoff plate appearance this year in the sample. By not including guys who didn’t bat during the postseason, the dataset is more representative of each playoff team’s VBA variance based on how its offense is currently constructed. With the remaining group of players, I took the variance of the VBAs on the given team and adjusted it to be a percentage above or below average. The average is set at 100, just like wRC+. Without further ado, here is the update on VBAVar+ for 2024:

As I alluded to earlier, the Dodgers come out on top this year. Their addition of Shohei Ohtani is a big help. Shocker! He comes before Mookie Betts, who is then followed by Freddie Freeman. From a VBA perspective, these three hitters offer immediate variance atop the lineup. Ohtani’s VBA sits around 34 degrees on average (although we know he can alter his swing a ton). Betts offers a very similar VBA at just around 33.7 degrees, but his comes from the other side of the plate, and he is much shorter than Ohtani. After that, Freeman has one of the steepest swings in baseball at just over 40 degrees on average. The different angles are one way to illuminate how different they are as hitters. They force pitchers to execute multiple pitches in different locations because each of them has different strengths or weaknesses due to the shapes of their swings.

Being without a healthy Freeman takes a versatile layer out of the lineup. The first baseman is nursing a sprained ankle and bone bruise, an injury that would typically warrant a recovery time of four to six weeks. He did not play in the Dodgers’ 8-0 win over the Padres in Game 4 on Wednesday, but he is in the lineup for Friday night’s Game 5. Either way, he is not at full strength. During his Game 4 absence, Max Muncy moved over to his old home at first base, while Chris Taylor and Enrique Hernández split the third base duties. As the Dodgers showed in their Game 4 rout, they have plenty of other boppers following the three stars in their lineup. It starts with Teoscar Hernández’s neutral VBA of 33-34 degrees. He is followed by Muncy’s slightly flatter swing (31 degrees). Then comes the righty Will Smith with his steeper angle of about 36 degrees. The bottom third is highlighted by Gavin Lux and Tommy Edman, who provide pitchers another different look with their flatter swings (both less than 29 degrees on average). I know, I basically listed the entire lineup, but that’s exactly the point: The Dodgers have a ton of talented hitters with different swing profiles, making it very difficult for pitchers to come up with a concrete gameplan to get them out. Last season, the Dodgers were second in this metric. The additions of Ohtani, Teoscar Hernández, and Edman, as well as the return of Lux from injury, have helped push the Dodgers to the top of the list.

The Yankees also have plenty of star power in their lineup. They’ve struggled offensively thus far through their four playoff games and are just slightly above average in terms of lineup swing variance. Judge is their only hitter in this sample who has an average VBA above 33 degrees. However, as I mentioned earlier, the top of their lineup is all the more dangerous because their two best hitters, Judge and Soto, have completely different VBAs. Judge’s is 41 degrees, while Soto’s is 26, and they also come from different sides of the plate.

The Padres and Royals appear third and fourth on this leaderboard, respectively. San Diego’s placement is largely due to its ability to rotate left- and right-handed hitters. On Wednesday, the Padres’ lineup went like this: L, R, L, R, L, R, L, R, L. There is one spot that sticks out especially: Batting Manny Machado fourth and Jackson Merrill fifth. Machado’s flat swing is geared toward crushing heaters, while Merrill’s steeper swing (and versatility) allows him to hit sliders well. If pitchers want to spam sliders to Machado, they’re forced to adjust quickly and take a different approach with Merrill. Yes, that’s possible. But if it makes things even just slightly more difficult for pitchers, it’s worth it.

Kansas City is quite different from the other teams discussed so far because its offense is top heavy. Bobby Witt Jr. and Salvador Perez are the two key threats. If you’re not going to overwhelm pitchers offensively with a bunch of star power, at least give them varying looks, right? That’s what this lineup does. The Royals have a handful of lefty hitters with different VBAs, ranging from Kyle Isbel (very flat) to Adam Frazier (very steep). The Tigers, the other AL Central team to secure a Wild Card berth, are a similar story.

The Tigers have done just enough offensively during the playoffs so far. They haven’t really had a big breakout game, but their versatility has allowed A.J. Hinch to make pinch-hitting decisions that put his team in a better position to play against the strengths of Detroit’s opponents. A good example of this came in Game 2 of the Wild Card Series against the Houston Astros, when Andy Ibáñez pinch-hit for Zach McKinstry against left-hander Josh Hader in the eighth inning. From a handedness perspective, the move is straight forward; McKinstry bats left-handed while Ibáñez is a righty. But what makes this an especially shrewd move is the fact that, from a bat path perspective, Ibáñez might be an ideal matchup for the Tigers against Hader. Hader has a flat approach angle on his fastball, which he’s trying to keep above the bats of hitters, and Ibáñez has a flat swing — on average, his VBA hovered between 26 and 27 degrees this season — which helps him to avoid swinging beneath higher pitches. That’s exactly what happened. Hader fired a sinker up in the zone, and Ibáñez hammered it for a go-ahead double.

And sometimes, you have similar personnel who are all playing so well that having variance doesn’t matter all that much! That is exactly what’s happening in Queens. Almost the entire Mets lineup is within five degrees of VBA. The only exception is J.D. Martinez, who has a steeper path in the high 30s. I don’t think the Mets’ position all the way down on this leaderboard is a bad thing; good hitters are good hitters regardless of their swing paths. Putting together a lineup with a high VBA variance is just one way to build a winning team, but it’s far from the only way.

This is the third year I’ve done this exercise and it’s one of my personal favorites. The more context that can be added to a team’s lineup, the better you can understand matchups and managerial decisions. In the small sample of the playoffs, teams have to flex whatever competitive advantage is available. When you have the personnel to make life harder for your opponents, you better exercise it.

In an postseason era marked by aggressive bullpen usage and pitching staff chaos, Gerrit Cole delivered a fantastic seven-inning performance on Thursday night to lead the Yankees past the Royals and into the ALCS. The final score of 3-1 makes the game appear closer than it actually felt; the Royals really only threatened once or twice all night thanks to an efficient Cole and a pair of scoreless relief appearances.

For the second time in the series, Cole racked up only four strikeouts in his outing, but this one was undeniably better than his shaky start in Game 1. On Thursday night, he gave up one run on six hits and didn’t walk anyone. The Royals’ approach was pretty clear from the get-go: They aggressively attacked his four-seam fastball and cutter early in the count, hoping to ambush him as they did in Game 1 — when their first five balls in play were all hit over 100 mph — before he could turn to his curveball or slider. This kept his pitch count down; he needed just 87 pitches to complete his seven innings. The BABIP gods must have turned away from the Royals because they didn’t earn their first hit until the third inning, and only once did they collect multiple hits in the same inning. As in the series opener, Kansas City made a lot of loud contact against Cole — 12 of the 22 balls in play off him registered an exit velocity of at least 95 mph — but this time half of those hard-hit balls were either on the ground (5) or popped up (1); in Game 1, all but one of his 11 hard-hit balls (out of 17 BIP) were line drives (5) or fly balls (5).

The Yankees batters were just as aggressive while facing Michael Wacha for the second time in this series. Gleyber Torres laced a double into left-center field on the game’s first pitch, and Juan Soto brought him home with an RBI single two pitches later.

Wacha settled down after inducing a double play from Aaron Judge and cruised through the next three innings. The Yankees struck again in the fifth when Torres chipped in with a two-out, run-scoring single that chased Wacha from the game. Right then, with runners on the corners, Soto due up, and his team down two runs, Royals manager Matt Quatraro turned to closer Lucas Erceg to get out of the fifth-inning jam. Soto got under a second-pitch changeup and skied it to center field for the final out of the frame.

Erceg came back out for the sixth to face Judge, who entered the plate appearance 1-for-12 in the series with four walks and five strikeouts; that lone hit was an 86.6-mph infield single in New York’s Game 2 loss. This time, though, Judge finally barreled one up, ripping a double into the left-center field gap. Catcher Austin Wells moved Judge over to third with a groundout to second, bringing up Giancarlo Stanton, whose career 160 wRC+ in the postseason ranks 12th among players with at least 100 playoff plate appearances. He scorched a 116.9-mph single up the middle to drive in the Yankees’ third and final run of the game.

Tensions rose a bit in the bottom of the sixth after the Yankees turned a 3-6 double play and Maikel Garcia took issue with the tag from Anthony Volpe at second.

After the play, Garcia started jawing with Jazz Chisholm Jr., causing both benches to clear and their bullpens to empty. No punches were thrown; they mostly just milled around second base for a few minutes. After the game, Chisholm said that he felt like Garica slid into second too hard and was sticking up for Volpe.

“I just felt like he tried to go and injure Volpe because he was being a sore loser. He was talking a lot on Instagram and Twitter and stuff. I do the same thing, but I’m not gonna go and try and injure somebody if they’re winning a game, and I didn’t like that. So I told him we don’t do that on this side, and I’m always gonna stick up for my guys.”

Chisholm became a lightning rod during this series. First, he scored the go-ahead run in Game 1 after a controversial safe call on his successful steal of second base. Then, following the Yankees’ Game 2 loss, he said the Royals “just got lucky.” That earned him a cold reception in Kansas City on Wednesday for Game 3, and the boos continued in Game 4. I’m sure this incident won’t help his reputation with the Kansas City faithful.

After all the hubbub died down, the Royals finally got on the board with a couple of two-out hits. Bobby Witt Jr. drove a single to right, and then scored from first on a long double off the bat of Vinnie Pasquantino.

The Royals gave the Yankees one final scare in the seventh; with two outs and a runner on first, Kyle Isbel launched a 370-foot fly ball to deep right field that fell just shy of leaving the yard. The batted ball had an expected batting average of .510 and would have been a game-tying home run in 24 ballparks, including Yankee Stadium, but Kauffman Stadium wasn’t one of them. Soto made the catch up against the wall. Inning over.

Turns out, so was Cole’s night. He finished with just six total swings and misses, five off his four-seamer and one with his curveball. More than half of the pitches he threw were four-seamers, but he didn’t really have great command of the pitch; just 52% of his four-seamers were in the strike zone, and most of his misses with it were high. It didn’t really matter much because the Royals weren’t willing to be patient and the rest of Cole’s repertoire was more than effective.

An interesting note about Cole’s pitch mix in Game 4: It was the first time in his major league career, spanning 336 starts in both the regular season and the playoffs, that he did not throw a slider. His usage of that breaking ball dipped a bit this year, falling from a little over 20% last year to just 14.6% this season, but it’s still pretty surprising to see him completely turn away from one of his best swing-and-miss offerings in a huge playoff game.

After Cole exited the game, Clay Holmes and Luke Weaver shut down the Royals in the eighth and ninth innings. Weaver earned his third save of the series, and the Yankees relief corps finished the ALDS without allowing an earned run across 15 2/3 innings.

For the Royals, this series ends their incredible turnaround season. It’s a bummer for them, though they head into the offseason with some hope that their winning ways might continue. They improved by 30 wins this year, they have an MVP candidate signed long term to build around, and their youngsters now have some postseason experience under their belts.

But this series also exposed some of the cracks they’ll need to address in the offseason. Witt Jr. collected just two hits in the series, preventing him from making much of an impact on the proceedings, while Pasquantino’s RBI double on Thursday was his first and only hit of the series. That’s not to put the blame on them; during a short series, sometimes your best players go cold. Sure, the Royals did get a bit of production from other members of their lineup earlier in the series, and Tommy Pham collected three hits in Game 4, but this is an offense that had the 40-year-old Yuli Gurriel — who has an 82 wRC+ over the last three seasons — batting fifth. The Royals simply didn’t have enough offensive firepower to compete with New York.

With the win, the Yankees advance to the ALCS for the second time in the last three years and the fourth time in the last eight. But despite their run of excellence for the better part of a decade, they have not reached the World Series since they won it all in 2009. To get there, they’ll have to beat the winner of the Guardians-Tigers series, which is set for a win-or-go-home Game 5 on Saturday night. The Yankees are the best remaining American League team; we’ll see whether that’s enough for them to win the pennant.

Colson Montgomery learned a lot about himself as a hitter this season. The result of that introspection? He’s going back to the approach that not only helped make him the top prospect in the Chicago White Sox system, but also has him ranked 17th overall on The Board. Striving for more pull-side power, the left-handed-hitting shortstop slashed a disappointing .214/.329/.381 with Triple-A Charlotte. And while the 22-year-old did hit a career-best 18 home runs, he also fanned 164 times while logging a 28.6% strikeout rate. With the caveat that the 2021 first round pick was one of the youngest players in the International League, Montgomery clearly underperformed expectations with the bat. A readjustment was in order.

Montgomery, who is currently doing some fine-tuning with the Arizona Fall League’s Glendale Desert Dogs, discussed his learning-curve season earlier this week.

———

David Laurila: What has the development process been for you in terms of your mechanics and approach?

Colson Montgomery: “Earlier in your career, it’s kind of an experiment of who you are as a hitter. You don’t really know yet, because you probably haven’t faced adversity or failure. Also, when you’re a lot younger, you aren’t facing the best arms. The sooner you can go against the best of the best arms is when you can learn a lot about yourself. Read the rest of this entry »

Well that’s not how it was supposed to go. The Phillies came into this season as one of the World Series favorites, having won the pennant in 2022, then reached the NLCS in 2023. They were the best team in the National League for most of the year, and — having won the club’s first NL East title since 2011 — were expected to at least repeat the deep playoff runs of the past two seasons. Ideally, they’d improve on it and go all the way.

Instead, they’re out on the first hurdle, having lost 3-1 in the NLDS to — and this might be the most galling part — a hated division rival who sneaked into the playoffs on the final day, then needed a lightning strike of a rally off Devin Williams to eke out a three-game win in the Wild Card series. But over four games, the Mets were comprehensively the better team. If Nick Castellanos hadn’t had his eyes glaze over white and milky as he accessed a higher plane of consciousness in the last four innings of Game 2, this could well have been a sweep.

A team this talented and well-resourced would be within its rights to shrug and run it back in 2025. Indeed, that’s what the Phillies did a year ago, when they were nine outs from going up 3-0 in the NLCS, then lost consecutive would-be clinchers at home. Now, having spit the bit twice in as many playoff series, the Phillies are going to have to at least consider changing more than their postgame playlist. Read the rest of this entry »

On Monday afternoon, across his seven innings of shutout work against the Cleveland Guardians in Game 2 of the ALDS, Tarik Skubal threw five pitches that moved to his glove side. His other 87 pitches — fastballs, sinkers, and changeups — went the other direction. Here’s what that looked like on a pitch movement plot:

Skubal’s “Oops! no breaking balls” approach was an extreme version of the arsenal that powered his Cy Young-caliber campaign, and may well be his primary plan as he takes on the Guardians in Game 5 of the ALDS on Saturday. Unlike most of our contemporary aces, Skubal doesn’t dominate with huge shapes or funky angles. There are no Sale-esque sweepers, knee-buckling splitters, gravity-defying heaters, or mind-meltingly flat vertical approach angles. Few pitchers thrive while concentrating 95% of their pitches in one quadrant of the pitch plot. But Skubal does. He excels by pitching like a turbocharged Kyle Freeland. Read the rest of this entry »

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about the possibility of players predicting opponents’ home runs, the Mets’ NLDS victory, New York’s title drought, Padres-Dodgers Games 3 and 4, Walker Buehler’s “earned” runs, Manny Machado’s clever, controversial dash, ALDS updates, a green-screen response and broadcast nitpicks, the possibly impending sale of the Twins, whether the ’25 Angels can pull a ’24 Royals, TJ3 deets, and a drastic injury-prevention prescription, plus a postscript.

Audio intro: Harold Walker, “Effectively Wild Theme”
Audio outro: Andy Ellison, “Effectively Wild Theme”

Link to FG playoff coverage
Link to NY title drought data
Link to “vintage Eric” quote
Link to FG playoff odds
Link to Emma’s Mets tweet
Link to Baker on the Mets
Link to Castellanos quote
Link to Grumkin wiki
Link to Padres-Dodgers Game 3 story
Link to skunk in the outfield
Link to Sheehan on Machado
Link to Calhoun play
Link to Judge play
Link to Judge play article
Link to Jazz boos story
Link to Jazz boos tweet
Link to Yankees travel tweet
Link to Trueblood on chaos
Link to Defector on radio issues
Link to Twins Daily on radio issues
Link to MLB/Audacy agreement
Link to Pohlad statement
Link to Twins Daily on Pohlads
Link to MLBTR on Pohlads
Link to Gleeman grilling
Link to Moreno story
Link to MLBTR on the Angels
Link to BaseRuns standings
Link to Ahmad interview
Link to Arthrex tape
Link to Arthrex kickback case
Link to Meister profile
Link to arm-stress article
Link to slider RPM/velo
Link to sweeper RPM/velo
Link to ZiPS odds
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The postseason is at its most fun when both teams have something to prove. The ZiPS projections may have been bullish on the Cleveland Guardians coming into the season, but the computer was in the minority, with most observers thinking the Minnesota Twins were the clear favorites in the division. The Guardians are no longer the habitual losers they were from the 1960s-80s, but their last World Series championship was still in 1948. For their part, the Detroit Tigers dominated the AL Central 15 years ago, but lost both of their World Series, dropping eight of nine games. And Detroit wasn’t even supposed to be here; the team traded Jack Flaherty at the deadline and if someone had bowled them over with an offer, Tarik Skubal might be wearing a different uniform this month.

Game 4 was do or die for Cleveland, with the Tigers’ plan of “Tarik Skubal and then pitching chaos” winning two of the first three games. With a bullpen whose second-half performance led the American League with a 2.50 ERA and 3.0 WAR (the Tigers weren’t far behind with a 3.00 ERA and 2.8 WAR), the Guardians had high hopes that they’d be able to send the ALDS back to Cleveland for one winner-take-all showdown. And that’s precisely what they did, winning a closely fought game that was one of the most entertaining we’ve seen so far this October.

Cleveland struck first and in old-school fashion, with a single and a stolen base from Steven Kwan, and singles by Kyle Manzardo and Lane Thomas, the latter of which scored Kwan. But Will Brennan’s groundout on a low changeup allowed Detroit starter Reese Olson to escape the first having only surrendered one run. Read the rest of this entry »

After Jazz Chisholm Jr. told reporters, “They just got lucky,” in reference to the Royals’ 4-2 win over the Yankees in Game 2 of the ALDS on Monday night, some teams might have pinned that quote to their figurative bulletin boards and set out to earn a decisive win in front of their home crowd in Game 3. In its full context, Chisholm Jr.’s quote focused more on the Yankees’ missing opportunities to positively impact the game than actually discrediting the play of the Royals, but along with their elite athlete genes, pro ballplayers carry a special gene that allows them to get 27 varieties of riled up over even the smallest perceived slight.

Aaron Boone, former player and current manager of the Yankees, knows this as well as anyone and tried to throw water on his third baseman’s incendiary comments during his own session with the media, saying: “I don’t think they got lucky. I think they did a lot of really good things, and came in here and beat us.” Boone went on to reframe the issue as the Yankees’ getting unlucky on some hard-hit batted balls, which sounds better in theory but still attributes some randomness to the Royals’ win.

Wednesday night opened in Kansas City with a sea of fans adorned in royal blue booing their lungs out as Chisholm Jr. was introduced to the crowd at Kauffman Stadium. He soaked in the moment with a wide smile and seemed to mouth, “I love it” multiple times as the vengeful cries rained down around him. However, by evening’s end the masses fell silent. The Yankees emerged victorious with a 3-2 win over the Royals to carry a 2-1 series lead into Game 4 on Thursday. Read the rest of this entry »

If you’re into relief pitching and pinch-hitting, boy was Game 3 of the ALDS between the Cleveland Guardians and the Detroit Tigers the game for you. On the surface, it was fairly straightforward, a low-scoring affair that featured good pitching and a couple of timely hits. But look beneath the surface and you’ll see that it was quite a quirky game, one that would be difficult to explain to casuals (not derogatory!). Why was a healthy hitter pulled before he got an at-bat? Why did one of the biggest offensive threats on the Tigers get pulled in the fifth inning? Truly, it was a dream game if you love talking about the intricacies of baseball with your friends. And lucky for me, you’re all my friends today.

Let’s establish a few of the details before we dive into some of the nerdier aspects of Wednesday’s game. The Tigers won 3-0 to take a 2-1 series lead against their division rivals. Just as he had the last few months, A.J. Hinch put his faith in his bullpen, a unit that posted a 3.00 ERA (fourth in the game) in the second half as the Tigers put together the best record in the American League over that stretch. They delievered another superlative performance, and now his team has a chance to close out a playoff series at home Thursday night. Imagine telling Tigers fans that was possible in July!

There are 26 players on each of these flawed but fun AL Central rosters. Realistically, four of those 52 players (the starting pitchers from Games 1 and 2) weren’t going to appear in Game 3 unless it went a gazillion innings, leaving 48 who might see action. The Tigers used six pitchers and the Guardians used seven. Both teams used three pinch-hitters, while the Guardians also called on Austin Hedges as a defensive replacement (he ended up getting an at-bat), making for seven total substitutions between the two teams. Add those hurlers and pinch-hitters to each team’s starting lineup, and you end up with a whopping 38 players used! Not quite every player, but for a nine-inning game, that’s a lot! And all that mixing and matching added a fascinating dimension to the chess game, especially the pinch-hitting. Read the rest of this entry »

NEW YORK — With his sixth-inning grand slam off Carlos Estévez, Francisco Lindor was the clear hero of Game 4 of the Division Series, providing the New York Mets with all the runs they needed to knock off the Philadelphia Phillies and advance to the National League Championship Series with a 4-1 win. Not to be lost in the spray of champagne — the first postseason clincher at Citi Field since the ballpark opened in 2009, incidentally — is the work of Jose Quintana. For the second time in as many starts this October, the 35-year-old lefty took the ball in a potential clincher and turned in a stellar effort, continuing a remarkable run that began in late August. As in Game 3 of the Wild Card Series against the Brewers, Quintana received a complete lack of run support, but once again the Mets’ bats came to life in the late innings while the bullpen held firm enough for the team to advance.

In five-plus innings, Quintana held the powerful Phillies lineup to just two hits, walking two while striking out six over the course of 90 pitches. The only run he allowed — the only run of the game until Lindor’s slam — was unearned. Including his six shutout innings in the Wild Card Series, and the 36.1 innings he threw over his final six regular season starts, he’s allowed three runs over his last 47.1 innings, good for a microscopic 0.57 ERA.

“It’s been hard for him, he’s been through a lot of ups and downs, and he always found a way to get the job done,” said manager Carlos Mendoza after the game, eyes red from some combination of champagne spray and emotional release. “We felt really good going into this game because of who he is, how much he prepares, how much he cares, and he went out there and did it and gave us a chance. [I’m] proud of him because he never gave up, never put his head down, kept working, and he’s been amazing for us the whole year.” Read the rest of this entry »