The connection between past and present is more durable in baseball than in other sports, and the link is particularly apparent during the World Series. We’ve had nearly 120 of these now, and the classics are a constant presence in contemporary broadcasts. Seemingly every inning, we hear about great games from earlier eras or learn how X is the first player to do Y in the World Series since 1950-something.

If there’s any problem in this connection with the past, it’s that so much of the discourse focuses on the games from the so-called Golden Era at the expense of more recent history. To an extent, that’s a function of time; however great the 2016 World Series may have been, it’s difficult to place those games into historical perspective. Sometimes, memories must marinate.

But that shouldn’t stop us from trying. Below, I recounted each of the World Series’ from the 21st century, and attempted to rank them from least to most compelling. It’s a subjective list — could it be anything else? — but however you order it, it’s clear that we’ve had our share of great matchups lately. More than anything though, at the dawn of the 2019 World Series, it’s worthwhile to take a look back at the previous 19 matchups. After all, we had a lot of fun back then. It’d be a shame if we forgot the details.

19. 2007: Red Sox over Rockies in Four

Entering the series, Colorado was the best story in sports. With a record of 77-72, the Rockies were 6 1/2 games out of first with barely two weeks to play in the regular season. From there, they took 12 of 13 down the stretch, won a one-game playoff, and swept consecutive series to reach their first championship.

Reality struck immediately. Dustin Pedroia led off the bottom half of Game 1 with a homer over the Green Monster and the Sawx boat-raced their guests 13-1. Games 2 and 4 were one-run contests, but this was ultimately a matchup between the best team in the American League and a .500ish squad no longer riding a historical hot streak, and it felt like it.

Series Minutiae: Bobby Kielty only hit one homer during the regular season and had just one at-bat in the series, but it was a big one: His solo shot in Game 4 proved to be both the winning run in the game and the last at-bat in his big league career. Read the rest of this entry »

Atlanta’s Game 5 loss to St. Louis last week marked not only the end of a season, but also the end of an era, as Braves catcher Brian McCann announced his retirement after the contest. It came without much warning: McCann hadn’t tipped his hand publicly and he certainly could have found work in 2020 had he wanted to play. For a man who mostly kept quiet away from the diamond, his understated goodbye was a fitting conclusion to a great and perhaps under-appreciated career. While at times overshadowed by others at the position, McCann was one of the game’s premier catchers for more than a decade. His steady production at the plate and prowess with the glove made him a star — and an intriguing test case for Cooperstown.

McCann was Atlanta’s second-round pick out of Duluth High School in Georgia in 2002, a prequel of sorts to the club’s strategy of locking down home-state talent in the draft later that decade. High school backstops are a notoriously risky player pool, but McCann bucked the odds and blossomed into one of Atlanta’s top prospects almost immediately. He was one of the best players in the Sally League as a 19-year-old, and he slugged nearly .500 in the pitcher-friendly Florida State League a year later. He then proved equal to the Double-A test in 2005. Fifty games into the season, he’d walked nearly as often as he’d struck out and with good power to boot. Stuck in third place and receiving little production from their catchers, Atlanta summoned him to the big leagues that June. (The minor league skipper who delivered the good news? None other than Brian Snitker.)

McCann made his debut at 21 years old and homered in his second game. True to form, he circled the bases quickly and unemotively, not even cracking a smile until he’d reached the dugout. By mid-August, he’d claimed the starter’s job. He finished his first campaign with a respectable .279/.345/.400 line (93 wRC+) and clubbed two more home runs in the NLDS that fall. His quick success prompted the Braves to anoint him their catcher of the future and dispatch Johnny Estrada, an All-Star the previous year, to Arizona for bullpen help.

McCann immediately rewarded Atlanta’s show of faith. In 130 games, he hit .333/.338/.572 (142 wRC+) and led all National League catchers with 4.3 WAR. That kicked off a 12-year run in which he was one of the league’s best-hitting backstops. Over that span, he made seven All-Star teams and won six Silver Slugger Awards. We didn’t realize it at the time, but McCann was legitimately one of the best and most consistent players in baseball at his peak:

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Minnesota Loses 5-1 to New York

Sports fans tend to have an inferiority complex. You can see it in the lexicon: East Coast bias, curses of billy goats and Bambinos, jinxes, stadiums where we just never win, bad umpires, scheduling conspiracies, unfair rules, pithy charges of Southern Exceptionalism. The NFL now reviews plays for pass interference, mostly because a bunch of Louisianans rioted after a bad call in a big moment. Speaking of replay, I’d wager that we’ll be stuck with the tedious and disruptive system we’ve got now for a good long while: Not because it’s necessarily the best way to do things, but because such a setup seems like the most effective bulwark against those stinkin’ umps who just have it out for (insert team here).

These inferiority complexes are silly, of course. They are the whiny and simplistic dimension of the fanhood experiences that nobody else cares to hear about, alongside stories about your fantasy team and the time you got a great deal on tickets at the last minute. It reflects poorly on just about everyone.

I’ll grant a temporary exception for fans of the Minnesota Twins.

It has now been 15 years and three days since the Twins won a playoff game. That evening, Johan Santana started at the Stadium. Minnesota wore gray pinstripes and hats with an ‘M’ above the brim. Jacque Jones hit a two-run homer to account for the only scoring. Hall of Famers Mike Mussina and Mariano Rivera pitched for the Yanks; John Olerud played first base. Somehow, MLB managed to run a playoff game in less than three hours. It was a different time.

By this point, it seems callous to run the numbers again, so we’ll be quick. The Twins have lost 16 playoff games in a row. That’s five divisional exits, four at the hands of the Yankees, with a Wild Card game defeat to the Bombers mixed in for good measure. There’s nothing magical or predictive about this little run. There isn’t any thread between the Corey Koskie–Torii Hunter Twins and the ballclub that lost last night; they don’t even share a home stadium.

The Twins have usually been underdogs in these games, though only slightly so. The Orioles were far bigger long shots in every matchup they had against New York this year and last, and even that feeble and overmatched club managed to win a quarter of those games. For Minnesota, the streak is undoubtedly frustrating. It’s a narrative that has fed on itself for at least a decade now. It sucks and it’s a shocking confluence of events, but that’s all there really is to say about it from an analytical perspective. Read the rest of this entry »

Tampa Bay cruised past Oakland in the Wild Card game and enters the divisional round for the first time in six years. Their reward is a best-of-five date with the Houston Astros.

The Rays aren’t exactly limping into the postseason. Tampa Bay won 96 games in what passes for a competitive division these days, and they’re solid in all aspects of the game. In Houston though, they’re meeting a 107-win behemoth, a club that looks like one of the two or three best teams we’ve seen this century.

You may have noticed something weird in the “Edge” column of the table above. Ultimately, the yearly totals don’t adequately reflect how dominant Houston’s rotation is as currently constructed. After all, the Rays won’t be facing Collin McHugh or Corbin Martin or Brad Peacock out of the gate. Instead, they’ll get Justin Verlander (73 FIP-), Gerrit Cole (59 FIP-), and Zack Greinke (66 FIP-). No American League club can unleash a better rotation this October, and even if the Astros only let their horses gallop through the lineup twice each start, they’ll still have an advantage in that department. Read the rest of this entry »

Outs are a scarce resource. Of all the insights the sabermetric movement has bequeathed, that one looms largest in a game like this, when an entire season hangs in the balance on every pitch. From the second that Yasmani Grandal’s line drive sailed over the right field wall for a two-run homer in the first, the Nationals were on notice:

You are losing. You only have 27 outs to fix it.

A month ago, Brandon Woodruff seemed an unlikely October hero. Not only were the Brewers fading, but Woodruff’s continued absence helped explain why. The righty went down with a strained oblique in late July, and didn’t return until the season’s final weeks. Even when he climbed back on the bump in September, the Brewers were cautious, limiting him to four innings across two late-season starts.

On the big stage, he could not have looked more in form. His heater, one of the fastest in the game on a normal night, reached triple digits and sat just a tick lower. He was amped from the first pitch, and where Max Scherzer tossed a shaky first inning, Woodruff looked settled. In mere minutes, he induced a groundout, a whiff, and a pop up.

Twenty-four outs to go. Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday, Ned Yost announced that he would retire at the end of the season. While the news came as a surprise, the man himself has always kept a healthy perspective on the game. Based on Alec Lewis’s profile, he’ll leave the game feeling fulfilled and ready for the next chapter of his life. His departure, along with a juicy rumor that Royals special advisor and former Cardinals manager Mike Matheny will replace him, made for an eventful Monday morning in Kansas City.

As a skipper, Yost was never a visionary strategist. He’s not analytically inclined by nature, and he struggled in game states that require managers to play the percentages. Too often, his choices looked reflexive and dated: He liked having his fast shortstop lead off, OBP be damned. His good players bunted far too often. He didn’t always know when to deploy his closer. Managing the bullpen proved particularly challenging.

In one 2014 game, Yost summoned young Danny Duffy into a tied, extra-inning contest on the road, and then turned to Louis Coleman after the lefty loaded the bases. All that time, he had all-world closer Greg Holland ready to go, but he never got to pitch; Baltimore walked it off against Coleman. Later that year, Yost brought in a lefty specialist specifically to face (then) feeble-hitting Jackie Bradley Jr. with one on late in a one-run game; the Red Sox predictably inserted lefty-basher Jonny Gomes, who socked a two-run homer to give Boston a one-run win. After that episode, the manager memorably took responsibility, saying he’d “outsmarted himself.” Perhaps more than anyone over the last decade, Yost earned an almost anti-analytic reputation, becoming the face of what sabermetric seamheads spent so much time ranting about on Twitter.

But as Yost’s time in the dugout stretched on, the criticisms of his tactical acumen felt like an increasingly small slice of the story. For subscribers of the iceberg theory of managing, it’s clear that he compensated with other strengths. Yost always absorbed the blame whenever things went haywire, a point that both his bosses and charges acknowledged and appreciated. He also had a steady hand with young players. In Milwaukee and Kansas City, he helped turn perennially losing teams into playoff-caliber squads, happily shepherding young talents through the inevitable growing pains. Notably, a number of highly touted prospects who began their big league careers slowly — Eric Hosmer, Alex Gordon, Mike Moustakas, Jorge Soler, and Adalberto Mondesi among them — eventually blossomed. Might they have done so sooner under another manager? Perhaps, perhaps not. Regardless, most of the best prospects under Yost’s watch figured things out eventually. Read the rest of this entry »

On the surface, Justus Sheffield’s developmental journey looks pretty smooth. He was a first-round pick back in 2014. He’s been a consensus top 50 or so prospect since the Obama administration — never much higher than that, but only rarely lower (Eric and Kiley had him ranked 60th overall and first in the Mariners system preseason; he’s since dropped to 109th and seventh respectively). His velocity has not materially changed. He’s suffered a few bumps and bruises, but nothing ever sidelined him long. Twenty-three years old now, he’s cracked a big league rotation right on schedule for a high school draftee of his caliber.

Statistically, he’s been consistent as well. With the exception of a very poor early season spell this year, he’s maintained an ERA under 3.40 at every minor league stop. His strikeout numbers have almost always hovered just above a batter per inning, his walk totals around 3.5/9. He typically generates more grounders than flies. Every year, a new level; every year, the same successes.

Yet Sheffield’s path has actually meandered a bit. As a high schooler, the lefty was seen as an athlete who would have no trouble throwing strikes and a guy who could develop three plus pitches. Two years into his career, he effectively pocketed one of them, shelving his curve in favor of a hard slider. He also grew quite a bit soon after the draft. Between the added weight, a new pitch mix, and a difficult delivery to repeat, his control suffered and whispers about a bullpen role grew louder even as he continued missing bats. His velocity, while stable in the aggregate, has periodically fluctuated on either side of the low-90s. We’ve learned that Sheffield’s fastball has a very low spin rate (more on that later).

He also got traded twice. On the one hand, Sheffield has had the opportunity to hone his craft under the tutelage of two of the sport’s finest pitching development staffs. On the other, those same clubs ultimately decided to work with different pitchers. As he’s matured, and as his fastball looks less like a bat-misser and his changeup remains a work in progress, he’s increasingly relied on his slider. The soothing consistency in his production belies a conflict between the quality of that slider and the reality that he must throw something else eventually. How that conflict resolves itself will shape his ultimate role.

The bullpen has long been the logical end point here. As a starter, Sheffield sits in the low-90s, touching 95 or a tick better at his strongest. In relief, he’d throw even harder. Pair increased velocity with a slider that earns a whiff nearly a quarter of the time he throws it, and you’ve got a late-inning reliever. Lefties, even ones with serviceable changeups, usually peak as eight-inning guys out of the pen. But on paper, Sheffield’s cocktail is good enough to close. Read the rest of this entry »

In Steph Curry’s junior season, his Davidson Wildcats played a non-conference game against Loyola Maryland. Curry led the nation in scoring at the time, and as expected, Davidson rolled that night. But Curry himself didn’t score a point. Loyola’s coach, Jimmy Patsos, instructed his players to double-team Curry up and down the court. So, Curry stood in the corner with two Greyhounds next to him as his teammates played 4-on-3 and won by 30.

After the game, Patsos more or less copped to the farce. Defending his tactics, he asked: “Anybody else ever hold him scoreless? I’m a history major. [Are people] going to remember that we held him scoreless or we lost by 30?”

Whether all that makes Patsos infamous, cynical, or pathetic is up to your interpretation. Regardless, he’s right about one thing: you can generate attention in defeat, even humiliating defeat, so long as you lose in notable fashion.

It’s a lesson the Seattle Mariners reinforced over the weekend. On the surface, Sunday’s matchup between Seattle and Houston looked as lopsided on paper as a major league game can. The Astros are perhaps baseball’s best team; the Mariners may lose 100 games. Cy Young contender Gerrit Cole was on the mound for Houston, opposed by former Cy Young winner but current-6.00-ERA-holder Félix Hernández. The Astros had already defeated Seattle 15 times in 16 tries. Vegas handicappers set one of the highest lines I can ever remember seeing for a major league contest.

This being baseball, anything can happen on any given day, and as it turned out, 35,000 Houstonians saw a pretty spectacular version of “anything:” the most lopsided ballgame in recent memory. Read the rest of this entry »

Tim Anderson isn’t exactly toiling in obscurity. Playing in the nation’s third-largest city, he made headlines earlier this year after one of his trademark bat flips drew a retaliatory plunking from Brad Keller. That sparked a benches-clearing brawl and placed Anderson at the center of the sport’s ongoing discussion about the proper way to play the game. In the aftermath, Anderson appropriately defended his right to play with emotion, and the episode helped reinforce the sentiment that he’s the kind of player a healthier league would market aggressively.

And yet, you could be forgiven for not knowing that Anderson has been quite good this season. He missed more than a month with a high ankle sprain, but when healthy, he’s hit .328 while posting a 124 wRC+. He’s posted nearly 3 WAR even with all that time on the shelf, more than a four-win pace over 162 games. (All stats are through the start of Thursday’s action.)

What’s less clear is how encouraged we should be by Anderson’s 2019 campaign. Prior to this season, he had established himself as a reliable big leaguer, albeit one with a mediocre stick. A cursory look at his year-to-year numbers suggests that, big BABIP spike aside, not too much has changed:

Other than the .390 BABIP, there isn’t much in his profile that suggests he’s a new man. The modest reduction in strikeouts is mostly cancelled out by a lower walk rate, and his ISO relative to the league has actually dropped in 2019. His average launch angle is also two degrees lower, for whatever that’s worth.

Read the rest of this entry »

In modern baseball, it’s hard to win if you can’t develop talent, particularly as the sport’s best teams get even better at turning raw ingredients into functional ballplayers. The best example these days is Houston’s pattern of acquiring pitchers with high-spin fastballs or curveballs and polishing them into All-Stars. As has been detailed at length here and elsewhere, Houston’s success with that breed has powered the club to the top of baseball’s hierarchy. They’ve worked wonders with Gerrit Cole, Charlie Morton, and Ryan Pressly. They may run it back again with Aaron Sanchez and Joe Biagini.

But the Astros aren’t the only team with a competitive advantage on the mound. Before Morton and Cole exploded, Cleveland was widely considered the gold standard at developing pitching talent. They earned that reputation: former and current rotation stalwarts like Corey Kluber, Carlos Carrasco, Trevor Bauer, Danny Salazar, Mike Clevinger, and Shane Bieber all became significant contributors in just the last several years. Of those, only Bauer and Carrasco had major prospect hype, and even those two took their lumps in other organizations before straightening things out in Ohio. Indeed, Cleveland’s ability to turn wayward arms into productive contributors sparked their mini-dynasty in the AL Central, and may again prove decisive in this year’s playoff push.

Cleveland’s player development staff has worked its magic on a variety of pitchers; Salazar and Kluber, to name two, are very different hurlers. One commonality, though, is that they end up with a lot of right-handed pitchers who are really good at tunneling on the glove-side corner. Kluber is perhaps the best at this: The late action on his slider and two-seam fastball make the pitches perfect for starting near the corner and forcing hitters to guess which direction it’s going to move.

Increasingly, it appears that this is a replicable strategy. The latest guy to carry the mail? Aaron Civale, a 24-year-old righty who barely snuck onto Cleveland’s top prospect list earlier this spring and has flourished in three big league starts this summer. Through 18 innings, he’s allowed just two runs and has whiffed a batter per frame while walking only four. Read the rest of this entry »