The World Series starts tonight, and if you’ve spent any time reading the internet over the last 24 hours, you’ve probably been inundated with preview articles. If you haven’t been, I’m particularly fond of this one from Jonah Keri and Ben Lindbergh at Grantland, mostly because it includes this fantastic image.

The rest of the preview is great too, which isn’t surprising, because Jonah and Ben do fantastic work on a regular basis. That preview is also annoying, as they stole a number of ideas I was going to spotlight in this post, which is why I stole their awesome outfield defense graph and put it in this one. But rather than cry over they-beat-me-to-it milk, we’ll just pivot and tackle the two World Series teams position by position. Forecasts are based on the 2015 Steamer projections found here on the site, and are based on an entire season’s worth of production.

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Over the last few years, I’ve been pretty down on the Royals as a contender, most notably writing a pretty harsh review of their side of the James Shields trade. Then, before the season began, I stated that I didn’t see the Royals as legitimate contenders this year, even though they were becoming a trendy pick in the national media. And finally, on July 21st, I suggested that the Royals punt on 2014 and trade Shields before he gets to free agency, given that they had fallen into third place and were seven games behind the Tigers in the AL Central.

Since that last piece was published, the Royals have gone 49-24, including their current 8-0 postseason run that has let them to the World Series. A moribund franchise has been rejuvenated, and the Royals have achieved the exact result they were hoping for when they made the Shields trade in order to speed up their timeline. If the Royals had listened to me at any point along the way, they probably wouldn’t be in the World Series right now, so it’s time for some self-examination. What did I miss? Is there a lesson to be learned here?

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Ned Yost has taken a lot of flak for his decisions this year, ranging from his decision to use Yordano Ventura as a reliever in the Wild Card game, an unchanging line-up that has Alex Gordon hitting 6th, and the team’s reputation for aggressive sacrifice bunt attempts. But more than anything else, he came under fire for his strict adherence to bullpen labels, deeming them too important to deviate from, even when the season hung in the balance.

During the ALCS, though, Yost moved away from the rigid bullpen patters he’d been an ardent supporter of previously. In both games one and four, Kelvin Herrera was brought in during the sixth inning, recording six outs in the first game and five more in the finale. Wade Davis also was used to get six outs in the opening game, and then in the second game, Herrera and Davis were called on to pitch the seventh and eighth innings of a tie game. Instead of holding Herrera for the seventh inning only, or only using his big three to protect leads, Yost deployed them in a more aggressive manner, and the result was four more victories and a trip to the World Series.

While the defense was spectacular and Lorenzo Cain seemingly never made an out, the Royals bullpen was the MVP of this series, and Yost’s aggressive usage of his dominant relief corps is one of the main reasons why Kansas City looks unbeatable right now. Bullpens matter a lot more in October than in the regular season, and when they’re used as they were in the ALCS, they can turn a good pitching staff into an unhittable one.

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Two weeks ago, before the Royals squared off against the A’s in the Wild Card game, I offered a few pieces of advice for Ned Yost, focusing on limiting the amount of outs he asked James Shields to get, not bunting too too early in the game, and using their speed to steal a bunch of bases. Using something not too far off that blueprint, the Royals staged a miraculous comeback and won the Wild Card, and they haven’t lost since. So now, one game away from a trip to the World Series, I have one more suggestion for Ned Yost.

You have two starters available on full rest: use both of them.

Due to the Monday rainout, the Royals have both Jason Vargas and James Shields available to start today’s Game Four, though the Royals have already announced that they’re going to stick with Vargas, while Shields remains on deck to pitch a Game Five, if it proves necessary. The easiest way to make that game unnecessary, though, would be to use both of them on Wednesday.

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Due in large part to Michael Lewis’ Moneyball, analytical baseball ideology has often sold as a necessity for low-revenue franchises to compete with teams who have vastly more resources. The A’s story was written as brains overcoming riches, and a number of teams in smaller markets decided to emulate their success. Over the past decade, the front offices most known for their analytical decision making processes inlucded teams like the A’s, Rays, Indians, Astros, and Cardinals, and because of this, Moneyball was the catch-all phrase for poor teams that used analytics to compete with teams that didn’t need it.

Except that story hasn’t been entirely true for quite a while now. It’s an easy story to tell, because low revenue teams have used these kinds of tools to allow themselves to make up for their revenue deficits, but the notion of analytics being only for small market teams is outdated and now just not correct. The Red Sox were probably the first big market team to really buy into the combination of efficient spending while maintaining a very high payroll, but the Yankees weren’t far behind, with a significant analytical department of their own. And of course, the Dodgers already hired one analytically-oriented GM, with Paul DePodesta running the team in 2004-2005, though that didn’t last.

When the Cubs new ownership wanted to build a sustainable winner, they poached Theo Epstein from Boston, and are now not too far away from being a very scary competitor for the rest of the NL Central. And now, the Dodgers have lured Rays GM Andrew Friedman out of Tampa Bay, making him the President of Baseball Operations for the team with the largest payroll in baseball. With Friedman heading west, arguably the four most historic franchises in MLB — and certainly four of the teams with the highest revenue potential — fit the mold of a Moneyball front office. This kind of structure is no longer the domain of poor somewhat less rich teams, and this transition serves to make the Dodgers an even more formidable opponent in the NL West.

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There were a bunch of turning points in Game 2 of the NLCS, including three late-game home runs that allowed the Cardinals to walk-off as winners. Yadier Molina‘s exit, due to a strained oblique, also looked like a big moment, especially when backup catcher Tony Cruz couldn’t handle Trevor Rosenthal’s game-tying wild pitch in the ninth inning. But, given the change in expected outcome, the biggest moment of the game might have actually occurred way back in the bottom of the fourth inning.

Already up 1-0, the Cardinals mounted a rally against Jake Peavy, with Matt Adams drawing a leadoff walk and Jhonny Peralta following with a single. Yadier Molina then laid down a bunt, which wouldn’t have made any sense if he was healthy, but it seems like he very well may not have been, which would help explain why he gave himself up to move the runners over. With first base open, the Royals easily decided to walk Kolten Wong, but then Randall Grichuk singled to drive in a run while also keeping the bases loaded.

At this point, the Cardinals had a 2-0 lead and three runners on with only one out. Their win probability had ballooned to 86%, in part because the run expectancy of a bases loaded/1 out situation is 1.5 runs, so while the Cardinals led only 2-0 at that point, the WPA graph was assuming that the inning would end with them either having a 3-0 or 4-0 lead, most likely. And that would make them overwhelming favorites to hang on and win.

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