The postseason is off to a great start, with both National League Division Series tied at one game apiece. Later today, the Tampa Bay Rays and Oakland Athletics will attempt to even their respective series. Barroom trivia aficionados may be interested to learn that the postseason has never started with all four series split at one game apiece. There is a roughly 25 percent chance of that happening today and if it does, TBS will have another fun fact to share in the next pregame show.

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Max Scherzer has a great changeup. His slider is sharp. He added a curve this year to keep lefties guessing. But early in games, he likes the fastball best. Friday night’s two-run, seven-inning start in the first game of the ALDS was just an extension of that affinity.

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Going into today’s Red Sox-Rays game, plate discipline and the strike zone figured to play prominent roles. They did, to a certain degree. Defense — or lack thereof — played a bigger one.

As FanGraphs readers know, Red Sox and Rays hitters are patient at the plate. No team in either league swung at a lower percentage of pitches out of the strike zone than Tampa Bay. Their 0-swing% was just 27.1. The Red Sox were third-lowest at 28.2.

The Rays were more aggressive in the strike zone. The Red Sox swung at 62.4 percent of strikes, the lowest in baseball. Tampa Bay’s 64.8 z-swing% placed them closer to the middle of the pack.

What would that mean for today’s ALDS Game One match-up? Red Sox starter Lester walked 2.83 batters per nine innings this year, but has been known to work long counts and build up high pitch counts. Tampa Bay starter Moore walked 4.59 and has been described as effectively wild.

Before the game, manager Joe Maddon said of Moore, “When he’s kind of like this controlled wildness, they don’t get hits. He may walk a couple of guys, but they don’t hit him. And sometimes he’ll get over the plate, which you’d perceive to be better command, and he gets hit. That’s the problem. He walks this different kind of tightrope.”

As it turned out, Moore — despite pitching better than his line score — walked the gangplank. Early on, it was Lester who was getting a sinking feeling. Not surprisingly, plate discipline and the strike zone came into play. Read the rest of this entry »

Federal district judge Ronald Whyte held a hearing today on Major League Baseball’s motion to dismiss the City of San Jose’s lawsuit, which charges MLB with violating federal and state law by refusing — so far — to permit the Oakland A’s to move to San Jose.

San Jose’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.

As I explained in this post in June, the core of the City’s case is founded on federal antitrust law. And therein lie the issues before Judge Whyte today on MLB’s motion to dismiss the complaint: Does MLB’s antitrust exemption still exist? If so, what is the scope of the exemption? Has San Jose even suffered an injury recognized by antitrust law?

Before I get to the details of today’s hearing, a disclosure. As it notes in my bio below, I practiced law for nearly 18 years before moving on to other things at the end of 2010. For most of that time, I practiced with the law firm of Keker & Van Nest in San Francisco, first as an associate, then as a partner. That firm, including senior partner John Keker, represents MLB in this lawsuit. This case arose long after I left the firm. I never worked on or was privy to any information about MLB’s decision-making with respect to the A’s.

I am also a season-ticket holder with the San Francisco Giants and a Giants fan. But I’ve been on record since early 2012 with a proposal for resolving the territorial rights dispute between the Giants and the A’s in a way that allows the A’s to move to San Jose. My personal view is that a financially-vibrant A’s franchise would be good for MLB and the Bay Area and, ultimately, the Giants.

Now, on to the hearing.

Judge Whyte began the proceedings with questions about the existence and scope of baseball’s antitrust exemption. It was clear from his questions that the judge had read the motion papers and the case law in detail. He was prepared with pointed questions for both sides.

Joe Cotchett, who represents the City, addressed the court first. Cotchett argued that the U.S. Supreme Court and lower courts have narrowed the exemption significantly, and that it now covers only the “business of baseball.” Cotchett then argued that the “business of baseball” is limited to “the play on the field” and does not include matters relating to team location and relocation.

John Keker argued for MLB. He told the court that the exemption was alive and well and that the “business of baseball” includes — at a minimum — league structure and organization, franchise location, broadcast agreements, and revenue sharing.

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Clayton Kershaw “struggled with his fastball command,” wrote one recap of Thursday’s NLDS Game 1 in Atlanta. “He couldn’t throw the ball where he wanted,” said another, again referring to his fastball, and he “wasn’t at his best early,” wrote yet another.

Those takes were all accurate, and when you’re reading reviews of a starting pitcher’s playoff performance and they contain phrases like that, you’re probably wondering just how badly things went. You might think those terms would be more appropriately applied to someone like Pittsburgh’s A.J. Burnett, who was awful in the Pirates’ 9-1 loss to St. Louis in Game 1 of their series.

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Starting opposite Max Scherzer in Oakland tonight is going to be Bartolo Colon. That sentence doesn’t sound as crazy as it might’ve before — by this point, we’ve grown re-accustomed to Colon being a starter and pitching effectively. One of the best ERAs in baseball, he had. It’s not that the Colon story isn’t amazing anymore. It is amazing, that he’s back and healthy and pitching like he is in the way that he is. But we appreciate change better than we appreciate stability, and Colon isn’t changing. He pitches like he’s 40, going on 29.

Beyond his size and story, there’s something extreme about Colon: he throws almost exclusively fastballs. Susan Slusser just wrote it up well, and though Colon does have other pitches, and though Colon does have different fastballs, it’s still extraordinarily rare to see a starter with so little speed and break variation. Given his repertoire and ability to locate, Colon is our closest approximation to a starter version of Mariano Rivera. There’s something else too, though, if you dig a little deeper. Another statistical extremity, that’s a result of his approach, as I suppose is always the case.

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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: Chris Young.

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Episode 385
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 every League Division Series that exists.

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 21 min play time.)

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Every pitcher is a work in progress, it seems. They get to the park and they figure out what’s working that day and they adjust. But, on some level at least, the hard part is in the rear view mirror for Sonny Gray. The work he put into his mechanics in 2012 is done, and now he’s more tinkering than overhauling. In advance of Saturday’s Game Two start, we talked about his arsenal and changes, both big and small.

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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: Curtis Granderson.

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