The matchup for the National League Championship Series is set, and it will feature the team with the best record in baseball and the team everyone thought would have the best record in baseball. The battle between the Milwaukee Brewers and the Los Angeles Dodgers will be a clash of styles. It’s big market versus small market. Superstars versus Average Joes. But make no mistake, even though Los Angeles has the name recognition (and all the money and resources in the world), Milwaukee’s scrappy roster is one of the most talented in baseball; the Brew Crew’s 6-0 record against the Dodgers during the regular season is evidence of that.

The Brewers’ win over the Chicago Cubs in the NLDS was their first postseason series victory since 2018, when they reached the NLCS only to lose to the Dodgers in seven games. This is their fourth appearance in the Championship Series, and they’re playing for a chance to advance to the World Series for just the second time in franchise history. As for the Dodgers, they’re the defending champions; this will be their eighth NLCS appearance in the last 13 years, making this well-trod ground for them.

The Brewers and Dodgers took very different paths to their success this season, and both have some key questions to answer in the NLCS. Here are the storylines to watch for.

Will the Brewers have enough pitching?

Want another example of these two ballclubs’ contrasting styles? Look no further than their respective pitching staffs. Due to a number of spring injuries, the Brewers started the season with a patchwork starting rotation, but that group quickly stabilized thanks to the emergence of Quinn Priester and Chad Patrick, the return of Brandon Woodruff, and the debut of Jacob Misiorowski. Injuries struck again towards the end of the regular season; Woodruff was sidelined with a lat strain in September and veteran Jose Quintana returned from a calf strain just in time for the NLDS. With Quintana limited and Woodruff left off the roster, Milwaukee entered the postseason with a lot fewer options to fill out their rotation. Freddy Peralta was effectively the only pitcher who made a traditional start during the NLDS; he took two turns against the Cubs, allowing five runs in 9 2/3 innings while striking out 15. Priester was lined up to make a traditional start in Game 3, but he allowed four runs in the first inning and was pulled after recording just two outs.

Like the Tigers last year, the Brewers have embraced a strategy of pitching chaos due to a lack of starting options. They used 10 different relievers during the last round, with Misiorowski and Quintana providing bulk innings in the games Peralta didn’t start. Aaron Ashby and Trevor Megill were utilized as openers in front of Misiorowski, and Brewers manager Pat Murphy dug deep into his bullpen to line up the right matchups in critical situations. Combined, the Brewers relief corps threw 30 innings against the Cubs, the most of any team in that round, and put up a 1.20 ERA, the lowest of the eight teams in the Division Series:

In the best-of-seven NLCS, that strategy will be stretched to its limit. The off day between Games 1 and 2 in the NLDS allowed the Brewers to be aggressive with their bullpen usage, but they won’t have that same luxury against the Dodgers. The most immediate question is who will start Game 1. Peralta last pitched on Thursday, which means he’d be lined up to start Game 2 on normal rest. Both Priester and Quintana would be on four days rest after appearing in Game 3 last Wednesday, which means one of those two will likely take the mound to start the series against the Dodgers. The other option would be to run with a full bullpen game in Game 1 and hope that Peralta can provide length in Game 2 before the travel day affords some rest ahead of the three-game set in Los Angeles. Misiorowski should be rested enough to make a bulk relief appearance in Game 3, which would also set him up to be used in a potential Game 7 if it comes to that.

For the Dodgers, the rotation plan is a lot more straightforward. They’ve got four phenomenal starters in Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Blake Snell, Tyler Glasnow, and Shohei Ohtani, and they leaned on them heavily during the NLDS. Those four guys threw a combined 22 innings against the Phillies while posting a 2.45 ERA and a 2.54 FIP. Los Angeles will go with Snell to start Game 1 and Yamamoto in Game 2, which would give him his regular five days of rest before a potential start in Game 6.

Ohtani throws a little wrinkle in things for Games 3 and 4, as well as for a potential Game 7. As of Sunday night, according to Fabian Ardaya of The Athletic, the Dodgers had committed to pitching Ohtani “at some point” in the NLCS, though they had not yet announced whether he’d get the ball in Game 3 or Game 4 back in Los Angeles. During the first two rounds, the Dodgers scheduled Ohtani’s starts for games before an off day, so he would have a day to recover before DHing. Manager Dave Roberts said the team isn’t going to be doing that for the NLCS, and that Ohtani would be in the lineup as the DH the game after he pitches, no matter what. All but two of Ohtani’s 15 starts this season, including Game 1 of the NLDS against the Phillies, have come on six or more days of rest, and none since the end of June, when he was only throwing one or two innings while coming back from elbow reconstruction surgery. The starter for Game 7 becomes a little murkier if Ohtani pitches in Game 3; typically, that would line him up to start the final game, but he’d be pitching on just four days of rest, something he hasn’t done this year. Game 7 would be an all-hands-on-deck situation anyway, so it’s possible Ohtani and Glasnow could combine to cover most of the innings in that winner-take-all game. If that’s the plan, then it would make more sense to have Ohtani start Game 3 because it would give him an extra day to recover than if he were to start Game 4 and still be needed for Game 7.

Can the Dodgers’ bullpen contain the Brewers’ offense?

Beyond the starting unit’s quality, the big reason the Dodgers relied so heavily on their rotation during the first two rounds of the playoffs is because their bullpen has really struggled over the last month. In September, Dodgers relievers posted a 4.90 ERA, and that has jumped to a 5.75 ERA in October. Roberts has trusted just four relievers in high-leverage situations during the previous two rounds of the playoffs:

Of those four pitchers, just one has avoided allowing a run so far in October: Roki Sasaki. After a rough start to his MLB career, including a 4.72 ERA as a starter followed by a shoulder injury that sidelined him for four months, Sasaki has been a revelation in relief. His fastball has looked sharp, averaging nearly 100 mph, and he’s simplified his approach by featuring his unhittable splitter nearly half the time while ditching his slider completely. Tanner Scott was removed from the NLDS roster due to injury, so Los Angeles won’t have him as a late-inning option in this series either. Alex Vesia, Blake Treinen, and Emmet Sheehan will once again be called on to form a bridge from the Dodgers’ starters to Sasaki, which is where things could get fraught.

The Brewers’ offense excels at putting pressure on the opposing defense. They had the fifth-lowest strikeout rate in baseball this year, and they were one of the most aggressive teams on the basepaths during the regular season. They put the ball in play, force their opponents to play flawless defense, and are quick to take advantage of any mistakes in the field. During the regular season, they put up a 107 wRC+, their best mark of this window of contention that opened back in 2018. Their .145 ISO ranked just 25th overall, but it jumped up to .159 during the second half of the season, and it’s up to .175 in the postseason. They also have a knack for clutch hitting: 14 of the 22 runs they scored against the Cubs came with two outs, and they had 10 two-out, two-strike hits, including four home runs, in the NLDS.

The Dodgers aren’t an especially strong defensive team, breaking even with 0 FRV, 17th in baseball. Of particular interest this October is Will Smith. Normally able to put a damper on opposing teams’ run game, the hairline fracture in Smith’s right hand clearly affected his ability to throw in the NLDS; the Phillies stole four bases while he was behind the plate. The lingering effects of that injury were enough to keep him out of the starting lineup during the first two games against the Phillies, and if his hand is still bothering him, I’d expect the Brewers to try and put the game in motion as soon as they get runners on base.

The other factor that the Brewers use to their advantage is a deep bench that’s filled with players who can turn a late-inning at-bat into a favorable matchup. But while there will be some chess moves to make with the bottom half of the lineup, they’re confident in the production from Christian Yelich, Jackson Chourio, Brice Turang, and William Contreras at the top; that quartet combined for 21 hits, four home runs, and 11 RBI during the NLDS. That said, the other eight players who had a plate appearance during that series collected 19 hits, three home runs, and 10 RBI. One thing to monitor is the state of Chourio’s right hamstring; during Game 1 of the NLDS, he re-aggravated an injury that kept him on the IL for all of August. It wasn’t a serious enough to keep him out of the lineup in any other game during the series, but his ability to run full speed was clearly compromised.

Will Shohei Ohtani break out of his slump?

For the Dodgers, the biggest concern for their offense is the sudden silence of Shohei Ohtani’s bat. The superstar had three hits and two home runs in the Wild Card Series against the Cincinnati Reds, but the Phillies’ cavalcade of left-handed pitchers held him to just a single hit in 20 plate appearances while striking him out nine times in the NLDS. Ohtani won’t have to worry about as many left-handed pitchers while facing the Brewers, though I’m sure he’ll see plenty of Ashby and Jared Koenig in high-leverage situations.

Mookie Betts, Teoscar Hernández, and Tommy Edman picked up the slack for the Dodgers against Philadelphia, combining for four hits apiece, two home runs, and six RBI; postseason hero Enrique Hernández chipped in with three hits and three RBI of his own. Including their series win over the Reds, the team has a 108 wRC+ in the postseason so far, with 31 runs in six games.

Even with one of their best bats mired in a slump, the Dodgers’ lineup has so many other incredible hitters that they can still pound an opposing team without skipping a beat. They had the second best wRC+ in baseball during the regular season, with a lineup that features a trio of former MVPs and a strong supporting cast. Although Freddie Freeman and Max Muncy didn’t slump as hard as Ohtani against the Phillies, I’m sure they will be glad to see fewer left-handed pitchers in this series. And even though Smith might not be 100%, his return lengthened the lineup by pushing Ben Rortvedt to the bench. Ohtani is still a critical piece of the offense — Roberts went so far as to say that the team won’t win the World Series without better production from him — but there are so many other ways the Dodgers can beat you.

The Projection

On paper, it would seem like the Dodgers’ star power and extensive postseason experience would give them the upper hand over the Brewers. Still, the Brew Crew is a lot more than the sum of their parts, which will make this series a fascinating battle between two very different ballclubs.

Even the best pitchers in baseball lose a game once in a while. Just ask Tarik Skubal. I’m sure you’ve read about it a hundred times by now, but the Mariners have won all three of their games this year where Skubal was the opposing starter. Seattle was the only team to hand him multiple losses during the regular season, and the Tigers dropped Game 2 of the ALDS — technically a no-decision for Skubal — less than a week ago. Now, thanks to his team’s roaring come-from-behind victory in Game 4, Skubal is lined up to start tonight’s decisive Game 5, giving him an opportunity to finally beat the Mariners this year.

I’ll give a warning upfront: This article is going to lean pretty heavily on batter-pitcher matchup stats; we’ll be examining some extremely small samples. But I think it’s an interesting investigation into the strategy that unfolds between familiar foes during a short postseason series.

What I really wanted to know is whether the Mariners had a specific approach that made them so successful against Skubal this year. As I mentioned, Skubal faced the Mariners twice during the regular season. On April 2, in Seattle, he allowed three runs in 5.2 innings; he gave up six hits and three walks while striking out eight. On July 11, he faced them again, this time in Detroit, and allowed four runs in five innings; he gave up just four hits and two walks while striking out five. His Game 2 start this past Sunday was his best yet: He surrendered two runs on five hits and one walk in seven innings while notching nine strikeouts. The two home runs off the bat of Jorge Polanco were his undoing. Read the rest of this entry »

Maybe the three runs the Tigers scored in the ninth inning of their Game 3 blowout loss weren’t so inconsequential after all. Maybe they were a sign of better things to come on Wednesday. Facing elimination, Detroit’s bats woke up in a big way in Game 4 en route to a 9-3 victory. That sends the American League Division Series back to Seattle on Friday for a decisive Game 5, allowing Tarik Skubal one more chance to beat the Mariners for good.

Consider this: Through the first three games of the ALDS, the Mariners had hit more home runs than the Tigers had extra-base hits. Kerry Carpenter hit a home run in Game 1, the team’s lone long ball to that point, and Spencer Torkelson and Gleyber Torres each had a pair of doubles, but that was it. Granted, three of those extra-base hits drove in runs, and two of them tied the game — the Tigers made the most of their limited opportunities — but Seattle had been absolutely outslugging Detroit:

Indeed, outside of Carpenter’s clutch home run, a pair of two-run doubles from Torkelson, and four hits off the bat of Torres, the Tigers offense had been conspicuously absent during the series. Even after their mini-rally in the ninth on Tuesday, Detroit was batting .165 and slugging .233 as a team entering Game 4. On the other hand, Seattle was slugging .423 even while batting just .212 through three games. That narrative completely flipped on Wednesday. The Tigers collected seven extra-base hits (three home runs and four doubles), while the Mariners could only muster one. Torkelson, Torres, Zach McKinstry, and Javier Báez each had multiple hits, and Jahmai Jones had a huge pinch-hit double in the decisive fifth inning.

And as they have all series long, home runs defined the shape of Game 4. Riley Greene had been mostly bottled up during the ALDS; he had collected just two hits through the first three games of the series. His first extra-base hit against Seattle was a 454-foot blast to give the Tigers a 4-3 lead in the sixth inning. After hitting 36 homers during the regular season, his go-ahead home run was the first of his postseason career and broke open the floodgates for the Tigers. For his part, Báez hit his first postseason home run since the 2017 NLCS, a two-run shot, later in the inning. Then in the seventh, Torres continued his hot hitting by launching an opposite field solo shot to extend the Tigers’ lead, making it 8-3.

The game hadn’t started off so lopsided. As they have in each game of the series, the Mariners got on the board first, scoring a run in each of the second, fourth, and fifth innings. With a 3-0 lead halfway through the ballgame, things were looking pretty encouraging for the Mariners. They’ll likely look back on Wednesday and be haunted by some pretty big missed opportunities to put the game away early. In the fourth, Seattle loaded the bases with no outs, but wound up pushing just one run across after a double play and a pop out squelched the threat. The next inning, the first two batters reached, earning the team another run, but the Mariners couldn’t keep the rally going.

Things turned in the bottom half of that inning. Torkelson led off with a single, and after a fielder’s choice, Dillon Dingler drove in the Tigers’ first run with a double. That chased Bryce Miller from the game, and Mariners manager Dan Wilson went with trustworthy lefty Gabe Speier to face the bottom of Detroit’s lineup. Jones, pinch-hitting for Parker Meadows, ripped the first pitch he saw down the left field line to drive in Dingler, and Báez tied the game with a single up the middle in the next at-bat. Speier came back out in the sixth inning to face Greene, but the Tigers left fielder turned on a hanging slider and deposited it in the right field stands. From there, the flood gates opened. The Tigers scored three more in the sixth, capped off by Báez’s home run off Eduard Bazardo, and they added insurance runs in the seventh and eighth.

For Seattle, it’s a pretty concerning shift from what had been a fairly dominant bullpen through three games. Even when you include the three runs allowed by Caleb Ferguson in the ninth inning of Game 3, Mariners relievers had put up a 3.38 ERA and a 1.71 FIP in 13.1 innings during the ALDS — their ERA drops to 1.35 if you ignore those garbage time runs. The Tigers have also scored all of their runs in this series in the fifth inning or later, putting even more pressure on the Mariners’ relief corps.

The runs Speier and Bazardo allowed in Game 4 were their first of the series, and you have to wonder if familiarity is starting to work against Seattle’s ‘pen. Bazardo has appeared in all four games, while Speier has now gotten some high-leverage work in three of the four games, including facing Carpenter and Greene three times apiece. Because Detroit’s most dangerous hitters are left-handed, Speier will almost certainly be called on to work in Game 5 on Friday, and thanks to Ferguson’s struggles on Tuesday — he’s the only other lefty in Seattle’s bullpen — Speier seems like the most critical piece of the pitching puzzle for Wilson and the Mariners.

The Tigers turned to Game 1 starter Troy Melton to shut down the Mariners bats once they had tied it up in the fifth. Melton worked around some trouble in the sixth, getting Randy Arozarena to fly out to center after allowing two two-out baserunners. The right-hander carved through the heart of the Mariners order on seven pitches in the seventh, then erased a leadoff baserunner in the eighth with a made-to-order double play, again only needing seven pitches to set the M’s down in order; he has to have Tigers manager A.J. Hinch feeling really good should the team need a fireman to quell a late rally from the Mariners on Friday. Will Vest closed the door with a 1-2-3 ninth.

While Detroit’s starter for the decisive Game 5 isn’t in question, Seattle’s is still unsettled. Both George Kirby and Luis Castillo could start Friday’s game on normal rest, and both looked pretty good in their earlier starts this series. Ultimately, it’ll come down to who Wilson trusts more to work through the Tigers’ lineup twice, with whoever doesn’t make the start likely available out of the bullpen anyway. I should mention that between the two, Kirby is the only one who has made a relief appearance during his big league career, closing out Game 2 of the 2022 Wild Card series against the Blue Jays.

No matter who starts for the Mariners on Friday, this was the exact scenario they were hoping to avoid. Allowing Skubal two opportunities to affect the outcome of the series is a very dangerous proposition, even if Seattle has beaten him three times this year. Tempting fate a fourth time tips the scales toward Detroit; our ZiPS game-by-game odds currently give the Tigers a 54% chance of advancing to the ALCS (assuming a Kirby start for Seattle). That’s a percentage Mariners fans are well acquainted with.

On Thursday, the New York Yankees became the first team to win a Wild Card Series after losing the first game of the best-of-three since the new playoff format was introduced in 2022. After dispatching the Boston Red Sox in the Wild Card, the Yanks have a matchup against another AL East foe lined up for the ALDS. For their part, the Toronto Blue Jays desperately needed their first-round bye to get their roster healthy after a breakneck final month of the season. These two teams finished 2025 with identical 94-68 records. The division race came down to the regular season’s final day, and the Jays only took the AL East crown thanks to a 8-5 head-to-head record against New York.

These division rivals are well acquainted with each other, though this will be the first time the two teams have met in the playoffs. (That’s pretty wild considering the Yankees’ long postseason history. There are now just three teams they haven’t faced in the playoffs: the White Sox, Nationals, and Rockies.) Their identical win totals during the regular season provide the primary storyline in this series: These are two evenly matched clubs battling for a spot in the ALCS.

Read the rest of this entry »

If there was a blueprint for a Padres victory this postseason, it would look a lot like their 3-0 victory over the Cubs on Wednesday. The Friars got some standout moments from superstars Manny Machado, Fernando Tatis Jr., and Jackson Merrill, and their bullpen completely shut down the opposition behind a solid 3 2/3 inning start from Dylan Cease. The win forces a decisive final game of the Wild Card series on Thursday.

Pitching ruled the day for San Diego. Cease was excellent in his abbreviated start, allowing just four baserunners while striking out five. He generated 15 whiffs on 37 swings — a 41% whiff rate — and his slider was absolutely unhittable. He worked around harmless singles in the first and third innings. Only after a two-out double from Seiya Suzuki in the fourth did Padres manager Mike Shildt turn to his bullpen. After intentionally walking Carson Kelly to get to Pete Crow-Armstrong, Adrian Morejon quickly dismissed the Cubs center fielder with a weak groundout to first.

Morejon pitched two more clean innings, then handed the ball off to Mason Miller. Miller struck out five Cubs hitters in a row, then plunked Michael Busch with two outs in the eighth inning. With a man on first, Shildt again went to the bullpen, calling on Robert Suarez to get the final out. Nico Hoerner lined a pitch to deep right field, but Tatis made an acrobatic catch to end the inning. Suarez allowed a one-out single to Kyle Tucker in the ninth, but got Suzuki to hit into a game-ending double play to secure the victory.

With their season on the line, Shildt was obviously managing to win today. The quick hook with Cease meant that his bullpen needed to cover the remaining 5 1/3 innings. Cease had reached 69 pitches by the time Suzuki doubled in the fourth, but it didn’t look like he was laboring. Morejon had already gotten warm in the previous inning, and walking Kelly to get to Crow-Armstrong seemed like a good strategic move in an early high-leverage spot. PCA had limped to a .231 wOBA over the past two months and had produced just a .250 wOBA against left-handed pitching this year. But that short start from Cease and subsequent heavy bullpen usage obviously has some knock-on effects for Thursday’s game.

Robert Suarez and Jeremiah Estrada have only been used once each in this series, but Morejon and Miller have thrown more than 40 pitches apiece. I’m sure both will say they’re available to pitch for a third day in a row, but Shildt has to be wary of burning them out. If Game 3 is close and the Padres are leading, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Miller for an inning on Thursday. Thankfully, Suarez and Estrada won’t have any restrictions for that final game in the series, and Michael King could be available to pitch if necessary.

Back to Wednesday’s game. San Diego got on the board early, scratching across a run in the first inning against opener Andrew Kittredge. Tatis and Luis Arraez started the game off with back-to-back singles and then successfully completed a double steal with one out in the inning. That put a runner on third for Jackson Merrill, who hit a deep sacrifice fly to get the first run on the board.

Cubs manager Craig Counsell’s decision to use Kittredge as an opener ahead of Shota Imanaga was reasonable. Imanaga has really struggled in the first inning this year — he has a 7.20 ERA in the first frame and a 5.08 ERA in his first time through a lineup — and he’d limped to a 6.51 ERA over his final five regular-season starts. Kittredge had been one of Chicago’s better high-leverage relievers since he was acquired from the Orioles in July, and a quick first inning could have set up Imanaga to face a string of left-handed batters in the middle of the Padres lineup in the second inning. Things just didn’t work out the way Counsell drew it up, and the team was on the back foot from the get-go.

The real killer blow came in the fifth inning. With a runner on second and two outs, Imanaga grooved a first-pitch splitter to Machado. The star third baseman launched the pitch 404 feet into the left field bleachers.

Machado finished the regular season in a bit of a weird slump. He blasted six home runs in September, but his overall line that month was just an 85 wRC+. That was an improvement over the 70 wRC+ he had posted in August, but he was still trying to regain his form after a customarily solid first half of the season.

I’d also be remiss if I didn’t mention how absolutely dominant Miller has been in this series. In Game 1, he struck out the side in the seventh inning. Today, he picked up right where he left off, striking out five batters in a row before a back-foot slider to Busch grazed its intended target in the eighth. And then there was this absolute beauty of a pitch to strike out Kelly in the seventh:

At 104.5 mph, that was the fastest pitch ever recorded in the postseason, and the fourth-fastest pitch resulting in a strikeout in the pitch tracking era (regular-season or postseason). And the pitch dotted the lower outside corner for a called strike three! Miller’s four-seamer averaged 103.0 mph in his outing today. Just look at these absolutely insane results from his two outings in the postseason:

He’s been completely unhittable. I already discussed his availability for Game 3 above, but if the Padres need him, I’m sure he’ll be ready to pitch another shutdown inning on Thursday.

That decisive game will likely feature more bullpen machinations from both teams. Yu Darvish and Jameson Taillon are listed as the starters, but I imagine both managers will be quick to pull them at the first sign of danger. If there’s one benefit to the Cubs’ loss on Wednesday, it’s that the best arms in their bullpen are rested. Kittredge will probably only be available in an emergency, but Daniel Palencia, Brad Keller, and Drew Pomeranz have all had a day’s rest ahead of Thursday’s contest. That just might give them the edge in what should be a very tightly contested elimination game.

After the last four playoff spots were decided during a wild final weekend of the regular season, the postseason is finally upon us. The 12-team field features a number of ballclubs that were playing their best baseball down the stretch in September, plus a few teams that backed into the playoffs in the midst of some worrying slumps. But the slate is wiped clean in October, and anything can happen in the postseason. Here’s a look at the 12 playoff teams and how they stack up against each other.

Last year, we revamped our power rankings using a modified Elo rating system. If you’re familiar with chess rankings or FiveThirtyEight’s defunct sports section, you’ll know that Elo is an elegant solution that measures teams’ relative strength and is very reactive to recent performance. Since we’ve reached the postseason, I’ve removed the playoff odds weighting to our raw Elo calculations and presented the teams in the tiers below based on our odds of them winning the World Series. If you’re curious about how your team finished in the standard regular season power rankings, the full table can be found at the bottom of this article. Read the rest of this entry »

The final week of the regular season is upon us, and the playoff picture in both leagues is far from settled. It should be a fun week of baseball as everything sorts itself out before the postseason begins.

Last year, we revamped our power rankings using a modified Elo rating system. If you’re familiar with chess rankings or FiveThirtyEight’s defunct sports section, you’ll know that Elo is an elegant solution that measures teams’ relative strength and is very reactive to recent performance. To avoid overweighting recent results during the season, we weigh each team’s raw Elo rank using our coin flip playoff odds (specifically, we regress the playoff odds by 50% and weigh those against the raw Elo ranking, increasing in weight as the season progresses to a maximum of 25%). The weighted Elo ranks are then displayed as “Power Score” in the tables below. As the best and worst teams sort themselves out throughout the season, they’ll filter to the top and bottom of the rankings, while the exercise will remain reactive to hot streaks or cold snaps.

First up are the full rankings, presented in a sortable table. Below that, I’ve grouped the teams into tiers with comments on a handful of clubs. You’ll notice that the official ordinal rankings don’t always match the tiers — there are times where I take editorial liberties when grouping teams together — but generally, the ordering is consistent. One thing to note: The playoff odds listed in the tables below are our standard Depth Charts odds, not the coin flip odds that are used in the ranking formula. Read the rest of this entry »

All of a sudden the NL Wild Card race looks a lot more exciting, while the playoff picture in the AL had a big shakeup over the weekend. It’s bound to be an exciting final two weeks of the regular season.

Last year, we revamped our power rankings using a modified Elo rating system. If you’re familiar with chess rankings or FiveThirtyEight’s defunct sports section, you’ll know that Elo is an elegant solution that measures teams’ relative strength and is very reactive to recent performance. To avoid overweighting recent results during the season, we weigh each team’s raw Elo rank using our coin flip playoff odds (specifically, we regress the playoff odds by 50% and weigh those against the raw Elo ranking, increasing in weight as the season progresses to a maximum of 25%). The weighted Elo ranks are then displayed as “Power Score” in the tables below. As the best and worst teams sort themselves out throughout the season, they’ll filter to the top and bottom of the rankings, while the exercise will remain reactive to hot streaks or cold snaps.

First up are the full rankings, presented in a sortable table. Below that, I’ve grouped the teams into tiers with comments on a handful of clubs. You’ll notice that the official ordinal rankings don’t always match the tiers — there are times where I take editorial liberties when grouping teams together — but generally, the ordering is consistent. One thing to note: The playoff odds listed in the tables below are our standard Depth Charts odds, not the coin flip odds that are used in the ranking formula.

Read the rest of this entry »

The playoff race in the National League looks pretty settled, but the door to capturing a Wild Card spot in the American League looks like it has cracked open a little bit. There are a handful of teams still looking to make a last minute run, though with less than a month left in the season, time is running out for those long shots.

Last year, we revamped our power rankings using a modified Elo rating system. If you’re familiar with chess rankings or FiveThirtyEight’s defunct sports section, you’ll know that Elo is an elegant solution that measures teams’ relative strength and is very reactive to recent performance. To avoid overweighting recent results during the season, we weigh each team’s raw Elo rank using our coin flip playoff odds (specifically, we regress the playoff odds by 50% and weigh those against the raw Elo ranking, increasing in weight as the season progresses to a maximum of 25%). The weighted Elo ranks are then displayed as “Power Score” in the tables below. As the best and worst teams sort themselves out throughout the season, they’ll filter to the top and bottom of the rankings, while the exercise will remain reactive to hot streaks or cold snaps.

First up are the full rankings, presented in a sortable table. Below that, I’ve grouped the teams into tiers with comments on a handful of clubs. You’ll notice that the official ordinal rankings don’t always match the tiers — there are times where I take editorial liberties when grouping teams together — but generally, the ordering is consistent. One thing to note: The playoff odds listed in the tables below are our standard Depth Charts odds, not the coin flip odds that are used in the ranking formula. Read the rest of this entry »

The Mariners entered the season with a starting rotation that was the envy of nearly every other team in baseball, with four young homegrown pitchers in Logan Gilbert, George Kirby, Bryce Miller, and Bryan Woo, and Luis Castillo as the veteran ace to lead the group. Our preseason projections had Seattle’s rotation as the seventh best in baseball, only held back by its lack of depth behind the top five starters. Three of those young starters appeared on Ben Clemens’ midseason Trade Value list, ranked 23rd (Kirby), 34th (Woo), and 36th (Gilbert). The M’s rotation has been the key to their success over the last few years, but lately, that same highly regarded group has been the weakest link for the Mariners as they fight to maintain a playoff spot.

Since the All-Star break, Seattle’s rotation has put up a 4.55 ERA and a 4.27 FIP, 19th and 16th in the majors, respectively. It’s been even worse over the last 30 days: a 4.94 ERA (20th) and a 4.66 FIP (21st). Kirby has allowed seven or more runs in two of his last four starts, and was knocked around for 10 hits and eight runs (seven earned) in two innings in his start against the Rays on Wednesday. Castillo has allowed five or more runs in three of his last four starts. Gilbert suffered through an ugly six-run blowup in Philadelphia a few weeks ago. Miller is sporting a 5.63 ERA since being activated off the IL on August 19. Even the metronomic Woo had his streak of 25 starts of at least six innings snapped on August 27.

These problems becomes even more stark when you compare their performance inside the confines of the extremely pitcher friendly T-Mobile Park to their struggles on the road. This season at home, the rotation is putting up a 3.40 ERA and a 3.82 FIP, fourth and ninth best in the majors, respectively. On the road, those marks drop to a 4.69 ERA (26th) and 4.44 (22nd). The Mariners have a 32-40 record on the road this year, and these pitching issues are a big reason why.

All of these struggles are showing up in the standings, too. The M’s are 22-22 during the second half, but since a 9-1 homestand to start the month of August, they’re 7-14, with four of those seven wins coming at home. Seattle has had two long East Coast road trips during this stretch, which have included sweeps by the Phillies and Rays, and a combined 3-12 record with three more games to play in Atlanta this weekend. Despite all this, the M’s currently hold the final AL Wild Card spot, just 1.5 games ahead of the Rangers and 3.5 games behind the Astros in the AL West.

It’s worth noting that three of the Mariners’ starters have spent a significant amount of time on the IL this year: Kirby was sidelined during spring training with a shoulder injury and wound up missing nearly two months of the season; Gilbert missed all of May and half of June with a flexor strain in his elbow; and Miller has had two separate IL stints due to inflammation in his elbow stemming from a bone spur. Seattle’s starters have thrown the most innings in baseball since the beginning of the 2022 season, and it’s possible that heavy workload over these past few years is catching up with them.

Here’s how the performance of the team’s five starters has changed from the first half to the second half:

It’s at least a little encouraging to see that the peripherals for Kirby and Gilbert look solid during the second half, even if their top line results have suffered. There are some red flags for Woo and Castillo, however; the former is 20 innings past his previous career high set last year and the latter is showing some worrying signs of fatigue. I think it’s worthwhile to take a closer look at Kirby, Gilbert and Castillo, and try to see what might be causing their issues and if there’s any hope of a turnaround in the final month of the season.

It’s been a really up-and-down season for Kirby. Maybe because of the shoulder injury, he’s never really looked like he’s settled in since being activated off the IL. The biggest clue he hasn’t been feeling like himself is his walk rate. From his debut in 2022 through the end of 2024, Kirby had exactly two starts where he allowed three walks; this year, he’s already had five starts where he’s allowed three walks. His walk rate has nearly doubled, though when it’s going from 3.0% to 5.9%, it’s still an above-average mark compared to the league.

I have a hunch that his command issues stem from a pretty significant change to his arm angle. Kirby had been throwing from a pretty standard three-quarters arm slot for his entire career, but it suddenly dropped eight degrees this year. I’m not sure if that change in mechanics stemmed from his shoulder injury — it’s possible he’s compensating for a still slightly damaged shoulder by dropping his arm slot, or that his body found a new “natural” arm slot during his rehab. Whatever the cause, the new mechanics have had a pretty dramatic effect on the characteristics of his pitches. Here’s what a few of Kirby’s key physical metrics look like for his four-seam fastball:

His heater lost some raw carry (IVB), but it gained a much flatter approach angle and now sits well outside the fastball “dead zone.” The results the pitch is generating haven’t changed all that much; Kirby is still garnering a whiff more than a quarter of the time, and the expected wOBA allowed off of his fastball is right around his career norms. But he’s throwing the pitch in the strike zone just 51.6% of the time, down from 53.2% last year and 58.0% in 2023.

Along with a flatter fastball, a lower arm angle has given Kirby’s entire arsenal a lot more horizontal movement. His slider is moving three inches more to his glove side and his curveball has an extra inch of break. His sinker and splitter both have a bunch more arm-side movement as well. That break has definitely benefitted his breaking balls, as both are running career-high whiff rates. Kirby has struggled to find a consistent breaking ball he can use to earn those swings-and-misses, and it finally looks like he’s got two of them.

Unfortunately, the new arm slot seems to have caused Kirby to ditch his splitter. He added that pitch in 2023 in an effort to find an offspeed offering to use against left-handed batters, and it’s been an important piece of his arsenal since then. He was throwing his split like normal in May when he first returned from his shoulder injury, but quickly ditched it after his second start in favor of a changeup. The new offspeed pitch is coming in a little harder than the splitter, with less drop and more arm-side break. Batters are having trouble putting the new changeup in play with any authority — it has a .155 expected wOBA — but its 11.1% whiff rate leaves a lot to be desired when compared to the near 30% whiff rate the splitter had.

It’s fair to wonder if all these changes to his mechanics and pitch shapes have caused Kirby’s usually pinpoint command to waver a bit as he gets used to his new norm. It’s also possible that he’s just been the victim of some really poor luck; his peripherals all look pretty solid, with his 3.56 FIP nearly a run lower than his 4.47 ERA. All his other ERA estimators — a 3.52 xFIP, a 3.69 SIERA, and a 4.10 xERA — point to some improvement to come as well.

Kirby isn’t the only starter on the Mariners whose mechanics have undergone a dramatic change this year: Gilbert has dropped his arm angle from a high, over-the-top delivery to a three-quarters arm slot. Mikey Ajeto detailed this change in a piece for Baseball Prospectus back in June, writing:

Gilbert’s fastball has gotten flatter, and his splitter steeper. Now his fastball is flatter than the average fastball, and his splitter is not only steeper than the average splitter, it’s getting forkball depth. Now he’s throwing strikes again with his fastball, and his splitter is one of the deadliest two-strike pitches in MLB.

Among all pitchers with at least 100 innings pitched, Gilbert leads the way in strikeout rate at 34.2%. And like Kirby, his ERA is half a run higher than his FIP, though his issue is a little easier to pinpoint. His 2.64 xFIP tells you almost everything you need to know: Gilbert is allowing far too many home runs despite all those swings and misses.

Interestingly, it’s not his fastball that’s the culprit. The flatter approach angle has helped him tone down the damage allowed off his heater. Instead, it’s Gilbert’s slider that’s causing some of these issues. The breaking ball is still generating plenty of whiffs, but when batters put the pitch in play, they’re crushing it. He’s allowed a .719 slug and a .445 expected wOBA with the breaker, which means that even though batters whiff against it more than a third of the time, it’s returned a negative run value this year.

Like the rest of his repertoire, the slider’s physical shape has changed with Gilbert’s lower arm slot. It’s a near perfect gyro slider, but this year, it has slightly less drop and a bit less horizontal break. We’re talking a half inch difference in both directions, but that could be enough to throw off Gilbert’s location with the pitch. Here’s a heat map of his slider locations this year:

Right down the heart of the plate isn’t the ideal location for a slider. If he’s throwing his breaking ball expecting it to drop an extra half inch, those locations could make a little more sense. He just hasn’t made the adjustment to his target yet and continues to leave those breaking balls in a very dangerous part of the zone.

As for Castillo, the issue is pretty easy to spot:

Castillo’s fastball velocity was right around 95 mph for most of the season, not too dramatically different from where it was last year and in 2023. But in August, his fastball was suddenly averaging 94 mph, and his ERA ballooned to 7.31 with the diminished velocity. Castillo’s heater has been his primary weapon since joining the Mariners, a pretty significant change from his time with the Reds, when his changeup was his best pitch. With Seattle, he has emphasized the hard stuff at the expense of the offspeed pitch, but that’s become a liability in these last seven starts with the lost velocity:

Batters were already hitting Castillo’s fastball pretty well earlier in the season, but he was mostly mitigating the damage. Since his July 28 start, however, his fastball has been getting crushed. He’s responded by throwing his sinker and slider a bit more often, but his sinker gets hit almost as hard as his four-seamer without the potential for swings and misses.

Castillo has been a durable and very effective starter for most of his career, but he’s suddenly facing a future with a diminished version of one of his best weapons. I’m not sure simply changing up his pitch mix to feature more sinkers is the answer either. I think he’s going to need to lean on his secondary pitches a lot more heavily to succeed; his slider is an excellent breaking ball and his changeup is largely unchanged from its peak with Cincinnati. I’m not sure if Castillo can make a switch to his approach in time to salvage the rest of this season, but I’m sure it will be one of the top priorities for the Mariners’ pitching lab this offseason.

For all their recent issues, the Mariners rotation still possesses a tremendous amount of talent. Both Kirby and Gilbert seem like they’ve been victims of some bad luck even as they try to navigate new pitching mechanics. Woo has continued to look fantastic despite running up against some workload concerns. Castillo and Miller have some big question marks going forward, and you’d think that one or both of them would be relegated to the bullpen in a potential playoff series. And for what it’s worth, our Depth Charts projections think the Mariners will have the third-best rotation in baseball for the remainder of the regular season. They’ll need all that talent to show up over these next few weeks as they fight for their spot in a tight AL playoff race.