So, Kyle Schwarber is apparently not rusty. His first two games in Cleveland were so impressive that the Cubs even explored whether he was healthy enough to play the field in Chicago, before doctors put the kibosh on that idea. But with Schwarber torching Cleveland pitching the first two games of the series, the team now has a pinch-hitter they can’t wait to use in the three games in Wrigley this weekend. And having Schwarber ready to come off the bench should make for some fun cat-and-mouse strategy between Joe Maddon and Terry Francona.

The Tribe have two left-handed pitchers on their World Series roster, and one of them is Ryan Merritt, the soft-tossing rookie that they’re likely hoping they don’t have to use. For all intents and purposes, Andrew Miller is the only lefty in Cleveland’s bullpen, so the right-handedness of the Tribe’s relievers should make it fairly easy for Maddon to find a spot for Schwarber to hit. Because, despite his impressive walk against Miller in Game 1, you really don’t want to waste Schwarber’s one at-bat by having him face a left-handed pitcher.

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There are few people I know that like baseball as much as Jeff Sullivan. I’m continually jealous of the way he can see things that I can’t see in the game, spotting little details that make for fantastic stories, and engaging with aspects of the sport that most people gloss over. While some may like the history of the game, or the ability to parse all the information it provides, Jeff is one of those who you can say truly enjoys the game on the field.

With that said, here’s Jeff’s take on last night’s game, as he was live-blogging as it went down.

Jeff wasn’t just being grumpy. August Fagerstrom, who was at the game in person, said this in our postgame chat about who was covering what.

If Game Two of the 2016 World Series was a movie, it would have 0% on Rotten Tomatoes this morning. Even with Jake Arrieta carrying a no-hitter into the sixth inning, that was not a display of baseball at its best. This was a four hour and four minute contest that featured a grand total of six runs over nine innings, and Major League Baseball needs to spend some serious time trying to make sure that they don’t offer up many more games like that to the general public.

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Andrew Miller, for once, didn’t look invincible. After relieving Corey Kluber in the top of the seventh inning, he walked Kyle Schwarber — who answered all of the questions about rust and timing in that fantastic at-bat — and then gave up a single to Javier Baez, loading the bases with nobody out. Down 3-0, this was the Cubs shot at winning Game One, and potentially running away with the series; if Cleveland couldn’t win the home game where Kluber dominated on full rest, they weren’t going to have an easy time winning four more without that ideal setup.

But Miller, being the excellent pitcher that he is, got Willson Contreras to fly out to shallow center field, leaving the bases loaded. Then Addison Russell struck out, and Miller was one out away from getting out of the jam. The final at-bat of the seventh inning seemed like the Cubs last shot to win; a big hit in the gap would tie the game — or a home run would even give them the lead — but an out would end the rally, leaving the team down three with only six outs to go against Miller and the looming Cody Allen.

So when David Ross stepped up to the plate to take his chances against Miller, I was pretty surprised, to say the least.

Letting Ross hit here? Really?

— David Cameron (@DCameronFG) October 26, 2016

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Over the last few days, we’ve written a decent amount about the Cubs potential line-ups for the World Series, with Kyle Schwarber’s return creating some options. With Schwarber set to DH when the games are in Cleveland, that left Joe Maddon with a decision to make about his outfield; stick with the struggling Jason Heyward while betting on his defense and track record, or go with the less experienced Willson Contreras, the youngster who was terrific in the second half but doesn’t have Heyward’s glove. Faced with a star player coming off a lousy season or a young maybe-star-in-the-making, Joe Maddon chose… Chris Coghlan?

It’s true, Coghlan is starting in right field in Game 1 of the World Series for the best team in baseball. With all due respect to Maddon and the Cubs — who obviously know what they’re doing when it comes to running a baseball team — this is a fairly perplexing decision.

To come to the conclusion that you don’t want to start Heyward against a right-handed pitcher, you have to put a lot of weight on his 2016 performance, believing that he’s currently unable to hit anywhere near his career levels for one reason or another. His postseason struggles (.071/.133/.179 in 30 PAs) certainly make it easier to buy into that theory, but there’s no question that benching Heyward means that you’re overweighting recent performance relative to long-term track record.

Except somehow, the Cubs are starting the only guy on their entire roster who hit worse than Heyward this year.

Like Heyward, Coghlan is a much better hitter than his 2016 line indicates, and was a good hitter as recently as last year. But there’s no getting around the fact that Coghlan was lousy in 2016, and while he’s only hit five times in the postseason, he’s 0-4 with a walk, so it’s not like he’s earned his way into the line-up with a strong recent performance either.

If you’re overweighting recent performance in order to talk yourself into benching Heyward, I’m not entirely sure how you ignore Coghlan’s 2016 struggles to determine that he’s the better option. To do so would require ignoring what he did in Oakland this year, and only focus on his performance after getting to Chicago, which amounts to a total of 133 plate appearances. Deciding on a World Series starter based on the most recent 133 PAs is to weight recent performance so highly that it’s essentially indefensible.

For the record, here are their forecasted performances Steamer, which take all relevant data into account.

This morning, I argued for Heyward to start even if the team saw his bat as a liability at the moment, based on the value of aligning his defensive value with the team’s highest likelihood of putting a ball in play. That said, there was a decent argument for starting Contreras, if you really believed Heyward’s bat is broken beyond repair right now.

But in starting Coghlan, the Cubs are getting the worst of both worlds; the guy who didn’t hit at all in 2016 along with a guy who is a significant defensive downgrade. Coghlan is essentially what you’d get if you had Heyward’s 2016 bat and Contreras’ 2016 outfield glove. When faced with a choice between offense and defense, Maddon chose neither.

Because it’s baseball, Coghlan will probably hit a couple of home runs tonight and be the hero for the series. And it’s not like this is a big enough deal to get up in arms about, since Coghlan will be pinch hit for as soon as Andrew Miller enters the game anyway. We’re likely looking at one or maybe two at-bats before he’s replaced, and a few innings of downgraded defense at one corner outfield spot; starting Coghlan isn’t some disaster that will sink the Cubs chances of winning tonight.

But based on everything we know, it’s a weird call. Contreras is probably the best hitter not in the Cubs line-up, even with the platoon disadvantage, and it’s not easy to see that Coghlan is going to hit better against Kluber than Contreras would if you’re going for an offense-first line-up. And you have to do some mental gymnastics about the value of recent performance to come to the conclusion that you want to bench Heyward but still think Coghlan is worth playing. Sticking with Heyward would have been justifiable. Starting Contreras would have been justifiable. Starting Coghlan? I don’t get it.

In general, when Major League teams have to choose how to deploy one-dimensional players, they go offense first, then defense later. Bat-only players are usually starters, they get their three at-bats, and then they are lifted for defensive replacements late in the game if there’s a lead to protect. This usage generally minimizes the number of at-bats you have to give to the weak hitting defensive specialist, and putting your best defensive unit on the field when you have a lead to protect seems to make sense, since you don’t need to score any more runs at that point, so long as you don’t let the other team score.

But baseball has changed, and postseason baseball has changed even more dramatically, so for the Indians and Cubs, I’d suggest that the best way to utilize their specialists is to start the defenders and sub in the offensive upgrades in the middle innings.

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A year ago, Kyle Schwarber took over October with his bat, launching monstrous home runs and putting himself on the map as one of the better young hitters in baseball. This summer, Schwarber took over July with his unavailability, as many of the summer’s rumors revolved around teams — specifically the Yankees — trying to get the young slugger from the Cubs in various trades, but the team refusing to part with him, even though it meant they had to settle for a bullpen upgrade not named Andrew Miller. And now, Schwarber is taking over Octoer with his rehab; six months after tearing his ACL, Schwarber is now angling for a return to the team, offering to serve as the designated hitter in the four World Series games that take place in AL parks.

From an entertainment perspective, I hope the Cubs add Schwarber to the roster; it would make for a compelling story, especially when the Indians inevitably bring Miller in to face him, reminding the Cubs what they could have had in their bullpen if they weren’t so attached to him. From a baseball perspective, I’m less convinced that putting Schwarber on the roster would be a significant improvement for the Cubs roster.

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Earlier than they wanted to confront this reality, the Blue Jays are now in offseason mode. Their 2016 campaign was laid to rest yesterday by a rookie with Mark Buehrle’s fastball and a reliever with an unhittable slider, so today is day one of the remaking of the Blue Jays roster. And perhaps more than any other team this winter, they’ve got some big decisions to make.

You know about the two big ones; Jose Bautista and Edwin Encarnacion are both eligible for free agency, and in a thin market, both are going to be looking for significant raises. The Blue Jays almost certainly won’t bring back both; they might not bring back either one. Toronto’s potent lineup is going to change, and the 2017 Blue Jays are going to have to take on a different identity than the teams that slugged their way to the ALCS in consecutive seasons.

But the decisions don’t stop at whether to re-sign one of their sluggers; the Jays probably have to decide how aggressively they want to push in on the short term, and whether they’re going to try to keep their current window open, or pivot more towards a long-term outlook that might make 2017 a lesser priority. Bautista and Encarnacion aren’t going to be the decisions; what the team does with those two will be the result of the organization’s larger decision. And in looking at their options, I think there’s a strong case to be made that the Blue Jays should not just tweak the roster this winter, but intentionally take a step back next year.

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The story of this postseason has been the dramatic change in the attitude towards relief pitcher usage. It’s been most notable in Cleveland, where Andrew Miller has been used anywhere from the 5th through 9th inning, but basically all of the teams still left have been utilizing their best relievers as often as possible, and relying more on their bullpens than ever before.

Yesterday, over at FiveThirtyEight, Rob Arthur showed that this isn’t just our perception, but that teams really are pulling their starters earlier than ever this year. Below, I’ll borrow a neat graphic from his post.

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