With the exception of the return of the Pittsburgh Pirates to playoff contention, perhaps the biggest story of this postseason is the cavalcade of young starters taking the mound. There have been 46 postseason starts so far (23 games at two starters a piece), and 18 of those 46 were started by someone 25 years old or younger. That list includes the likes of Michael Wacha, Gerrit Cole, Sonny Gray, Danny Salazar, and Clayton Kershaw. Kershaw, Mike Minor and Joe Kelly are all 25, while Wacha and Julio Teheran are the babies at 22. Almost 40% of the postseason starts were from young talent this year, though that number will go down now that Kershaw, Kelly, and Wacha are the only young starters left. Still, the 2013 postseason is another indicator that the trend of young starters is making a comeback.
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Game One of the 2013 ALCS was a classic. The Detroit Tigers beat the Boston Red Sox 1-0 in a contest that featured more than its fair share of drama. It also featured plenty of strikeouts and a near no-hitter. The game ended after midnight, with 322 pitches having been thrown.

Jim Leyland said something interesting about the Red Sox offense on Friday. There was a grain of truth to his comment, yet it was off base. It said a lot about a team that is very good at getting on base.

Asked about Boston’s ability to drive up pitch counts, the Tigers manager said, “I really don’t think taking pitches and working the pitcher has much to do with it… It‘s not taking the pitches, it’s that they foul off good pitches.”

Red Sox hitters did foul off a lot of pitches this year. Most notably, they fouled off 4,065 two-strike pitches, the most in baseball. The median was just under 2,800. No team had fewer than the Royals, who fouled off just 1,693 two-strike pitches.

Those numbers don’t prove Leyland right. Read the rest of this entry »

Those who made it through yesterday’s 13-inning National League Championship Series opener were treated to the latest chapter in “The Legend of Carlos Beltran.” He drove in all three of the Cardinals’ runs, adding to his legacy as perhaps the best postseason hitter of all time. Hidden behind the story of Beltran’s postseason greatness was Joe Kelly’s shaky, yet effective start.

Prior to yesterday’s game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and St. Louis Cardinals, Dave Cameron and Jeff Sullivan spent about 2,000 words, four GIFs, and two tables covering who Kelly is, his most noteworthy skills, and why the Cardinals chose to start him in Game One of the NLCS. You can find those articles here and here. In short, it was determined that Kelly probably isn’t as good as his career 3.08 ERA, but may not be as bad as his 4.00 FIP either. Jeff offered Henderson Alvarez as a comparable player.

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After examining the National League Championship Series umpires yesterday, I will look at the American League Championship Series umpires today. Even though the ALCS umpire crew is led by fan “favorite” Joe West, they are generally neutral in their strike calling.

For each umpire, I have include their 3-year average K%, BB% and Zone% for both left-handed and right-handed hitters. To get the Zone%, I looked at the number of called strikes and balls in the league average called strike zone. The strike zone used is the same one that is used for FanGraphs hitter and pitcher Pitchf/x Zone% values.

Also, I have created a 100 scale which shows how much more or less an umpire’s values are compared to the league average. A value over 100 is always pitcher friendly (a lower BB% means a higher value).

Additionally, I have included a heat map of the umpire’s called strike zone compared to the league average zone. It subtracts the percentage of called strikes divided by the total of the called balls and strikes of the umpire from the league average. For example, if the umpire called a pitch in the zone a strike 40% of the time and if the league average is 50%, the output would be -10% (40%-50%) or 0.10.

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Episode 388
Dave Cameron is both (a) the managing editor of FanGraphs and (b) the guest on this particular edition of FanGraphs Audio — during which edition he analyzes all the League Championship Series in existence presently.

Don’t hesitate to direct pod-related correspondence to @cistulli on Twitter.

You can subscribe to the podcast via iTunes or other feeder things.

Audio after the jump. (Approximately 24 min play time.)

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The Cardinals’ pitching staff, obviously, is led by Adam Wainwright, and Wainwright’s curveball is the single biggest reason the team was able to slip past the Pirates in the previous round. Wainwright’s a veteran, and though he can throw pretty hard, he’s not known for his velocity so much as his movement and command. But behind Wainwright, this is a postseason staff featuring a hell of a lot of mostly young heat. Michael Wacha kept the Cardinals alive by nearly keeping the Pirates no-hit. Lance Lynn can run it up there. Trevor Rosenthal’s fastball is the main reason he’s so dominant. Kevin Siegrist and Carlos Martinez can blow hitters away in front of Rosenthal. Shelby Miller and John Axford have big heat, if also big question marks. And there’s Joe Kelly, whose fastball this season averaged 95 miles per hour.

If you’re being honest with yourself, unless you’re a Cardinals fan, Kelly’s probably a virtual unknown. He’s also tonight’s Game 1 starter in the NLCS against the Dodgers, and if you just glance over Kelly’s statistics, you’ll come away unimpressed. If you dig into the splits and isolate his performance as a starter, you’ll come away even more unimpressed. The performance numbers paint one picture of Kelly. The velocity numbers paint a picture quite different. The two different Kellys are somewhat hard to reconcile, but it helps that the same profile exists somewhere else.

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Federal Judge Ronald Whyte today dismissed the City of San Jose’s federal and state antitrust claims against Major League Baseball but permitted a claim for tortious interference with contract to move forward. The one remaining claim gives the city a glimmer of hope in it’s effort to bring the Oakland Athletics to San Jose.

The city’s complaint, filed in June, alleges that MLB places unreasonable restrictions on competition by making it difficult — if not impossible — for teams to relocate from one city to another. The City also claims that by refusing to act on the A’s proposal to build a privately-financed ballpark in San Jose, MLB has interfered with the City’s option agreement with the A’s. Under that agreement, the A’s would purchase land from the City for the purpose of building the ballpark, if MLB approved the move. My post from June explains the ins and outs of discusses San Jose’s complaint.

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Free agency begins five days after the end of the World Series. As in other recent offseasons, FanGraphs is once again facilitating this offseason a contract-crowdsourcing project, the idea being to harness the wisdom of the crowds to the end of better understanding the 2013-14 free-agent market.

Note that, this year, in addition to asking readers to estimate the years/dollars each free agent is likely to receive, FanGraphs is also requesting that readers make note of how much they’d pay each free agent were they, themselves, actual GMs.

In this edition: Roy Halladay.

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There is always a bit of a lull between the end of the minor league playoffs in September and the start of the annual top prospects lists in early November. Because of that gap, I’m breathing new life into an old feature that I wrote for the site in FanGraphs’ infancy back in 2008 and 2009.

The series ‘A Minor Review of 2013? will look back on some of the major happenings in each MLB organization since the beginning of April as a primer for the upcoming FanGraphs Top 10+5 prospects lists. This series will run throughout September and October. I hope you enjoy the series and are eagerly anticipating the start of ‘Prospect List Season.’

The player listed in the sleeper section was featured in a pre-season series that looked at one fringe prospect in each organization that was expected to take a big step forward during 2013, chosen by myself, a scout or a front office talent evaluator.

The Graduate: Tony Cingrani, LHP: The rookie southpaw played a key role in the Reds’ strong season. He spent the majority of his time in the starting rotation (18 starts) but also made five relief appearances. His command and control both need work but it’s tough for hitters to pick up the ball out of his hand, as witnessed by his strikeout rate and hits-to-innings-pitched rate. It remains to be seen, though, how long he can survive as a big league starter by relying on his heater more than 80% of the time.

The Riser: Jesse Winker, OF: I ranked Winker as the ninth best prospect in the system during the offseason and he took a big step forward in 2013. A contact I spoke with in the offseason said the young outfielder had an advanced approach and a plus bat. Well, Winker proved that contact right with a strong season in Low-A ball and will look to repeat his success in 2014; he could move quickly for a prep draftee.

The Tumbler: Daniel Corcino, RHP: Corcino suffered a complete meltdown in 2013 at the Triple-A level. The right-hander carried an ERA of more than 7.00 into June when he when both his command and control deserted him. The 23-year-old will no doubt return to Triple-A in 2014 and is likely another poor month or two away from revisiting his previous role as a reliever.

The 2013 Draft Pick: Ben Lively, RHP: Lively carved up hitters in short-season ball and earned a late-season promotion to Low-A ball. The right-hander isn’t flashy but he commands a four-pitch repertoire and his heater works in the low-90s. He doesn’t have a huge ceiling but the Florida native could develop into a durable No. 4 starter.

The Sleeper: Seth Mejias-Brean, 3B: One of my favorite sleeper picks from last off-season, Mejias-Brean hit more than .300 for the second straight season while showing intriguing gap power. He doesn’t possess eye-popping power but he does enough things well that he could eventually find himself starting at the hot corner at the big league level and the Reds’ current third baseman Todd Frazier is by no means irreplaceable.

Tonight, the Cardinals and Dodgers square off in Game 1 of the NLCS. The Dodgers are throwing Zack Greinke, who you probably know as one of the best pitchers alive. The Cardinals are throwing Joe Kelly, who, if you don’t watch the Cardinals regularly, you may have never heard of. But, being the Cardinals, it is no huge surprise that they have found some moderate prospect in the third round and turned him into an ace. This is what they do. So, Joe Kelly and his 3.08 career ERA is taking the mound for the Cardinals tonight as yet another example of the Cardinals ridiculous player development success.

Except Joe Kelly is a little different than the rest of the terrific young arms the Cardinals keep pulling out of thin air. A table of the most often used 27-and-under pitchers that St. Louis has thrown over the last two years, to illustrate the difference:

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