Author Archive

NL Division Series Preview: Los Angeles Dodgers vs. San Diego Padres

Note: The Padres did indeed include Mike Clevinger on their roster, which was submitted on Tuesday morning, but not Dinelson Lamet. For more on the impact of both teams’ rotation and roster decisions, please see here.

Despite some nail-biting moments in their respective Wild Card Series, the Dodgers swept the Brewers and the Padres outlasted the Cardinals to produce a Division Series matchup that just so happens to pit the National Leagues’s two best teams by both won-loss record (the Dodgers went 43-17, the Padres 37-23) and run differential (+136 for the former, +84 for the latter) against each other. In that regard, it’s a pity the two teams only get a best-of-five series to settle things instead of a best-of-seven. With MVP candidates Mookie Betts, Fernando Tatis Jr., and Manny Machado — not to mention past MVPs Cody Bellinger and Clayton Kershaw — and perhaps some future Cy Young candidates, this one has the potential to be as entertaining as any later-round series.

The Dodgers, after playing at a 116-win pace during the regular season — not necessarily the best omen, mind you — never trailed the Brewers during the Wild Card Series. They didn’t exactly run away with things in their 4-2 and 3-0 wins, but none of their pitchers had to work back-to-back days. The Padres, who played at a 100-win pace but lost starters Mike Clevinger and Dinelson Lamet to arm injuries during the final week of the season, won their first playoff series in 22 years, beating the Cardinals despite not getting more than 2.1 innings from a starting pitcher in any of the three games. They lost Game 1 and had to climb out of a four-run hole in the later innings of Game 2, but won the rubber match via a nine-pitcher shutout, an unprecedented postseason showing. Four of their pitchers worked all three games, though none threw more than three total innings.

During the regular season, the Dodgers beat the Padres in six out of 10 games, and outscored them 60-48. A single 11-2 win on August 13 — during which Chris Paddack was shellacked for six runs in three innings while Julio Urías pitched 6.1 strong innings — accounted for the lion’s share of that run differential.

Worth noting: this series will be played in the Globe Life Field, the brand new home of the Texas Rangers. It’s covered, and has artificial turf, and with outfield dimensions of 329′-372′-407′-374′-326′ from left to right, it’s shorter to the power allies but deeper to center field than its predecessor. It plays as a pitcher-friendly venue, and could help the more fly ball-oriented Padres staff more than the Dodgers. The 66 homers hit there this year ranked 22nd in the majors, so for all the power these two teams showed during the regular season, there may not be as many fireworks. Read the rest of this entry »


Freddie Freeman, Fastballs, and the Hall of Fame

If Major League Baseball awarded MVP honors for the Wild Card Series, then Max Fried, Ian Anderson and the rest of a Braves pitching staff that held the Reds scoreless for 22 consecutive innings would have rightly claimed it, but Freddie Freeman played a significant role in the Braves’ advancement as well. In the bottom of the 13th inning of Game 1, more than four and a half hours into a scoreless standoff that set a postseason record, the 31-year-old first baseman’s single up the middle brought home Cristian Pache, his latest big hit in a season that for all of its brevity has been full of them.

Since the ballots have been cast, that hit won’t affect the voting, of course, but Freeman’s regular season performance has given him a shot at becoming the first first baseman to win an MVP award since Joey Votto in 2010. His performance was all the more amazing given that he tested positive for COVID-19 in early July, and feared for his own life as he battled high fevers. Thankfully, he not only recovered and regained his strength but did so in time to be in the Braves’ lineup on Opening Day. Remarkably, he played in all 60 games, one of 14 players to do so (not counting Starling Marte, who squeezed in 61 while being traded from the Diamondbacks to the Marlins). Freeman hit a sizzling .341/.462/.640, placing second in the National League in all three slash stats and wRC+ (187) behind Juan Soto, who played 13 fewer games due to his own COVID-19 battle.

Big hits? Freeman batted .423/.583/.885 in 72 plate appearances with runners in scoring position, good for a major league-best 264 wRC+ in that capacity. While he finished second in the NL behind teammate Marcell Ozuna in RBI (56 to 53), he led the majors in Win Probability Added (3.17), more than a full win ahead of the 10th-ranked Ozuna. Read the rest of this entry »


Fireworks from Tatis, Machado, and Myers Key Padres Comeback

Within the context of the abbreviated 2020 season, both Fernando Tatis Jr. and Manny Machado produced electrifying highlights and eye-opening numbers while helping the Padres to the National League’s second-best record. But with the team on the verge of elimination against the Cardinals in the best-of-three Wild Card Series, the two MVP candidates spent the first five innings of Thursday night’s game unable to get the big hit that would take a tattered pitching staff off the hook. And then with two swings of the bat, the pair’s fourth set of back-to-back home runs this season changed everything, erasing a four-run deficit. Additional fireworks followed — enough to summon the ghosts of Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig, even — and ultimately, the Padres outlasted the Cardinals for an 11-9 win, forcing a Game 3 to be played on Friday.

For the first five and a half innings, this one had the feel of déjà vu. Already without Mike Clevinger and Dinelson Lamet due to arm injuries suffered during the final week of the regular season, and having gotten just 2.1 innings from Chris Paddack in Game 1 as they fell into a 6-2 hole from which they never escaped, the Padres fell behind early. Sinkerballer Zach Davies simply could not get the Cardinals — who finished in a virtual tie with the Padres for the lowest swing rate in the National League (43.6%) — to play his game by swinging at pitches below the strike zone. During the regular season, nobody threw a higher percentage of such pitches:

Highest Percentage of Pitches Below Strike Zone
Rk Pitcher Team Below Zone Total Pitches % xwOBA
1 Zach Davies Brewers 546 1055 51.8% .288
2 Randy Dobnak Twins 365 748 48.8% .293
3 Zack Greinke Astros 497 1060 46.9% .128
4 Erick Fedde Nationals 394 850 46.4% .313
5 Kenta Maeda Twins 443 986 44.9% .184
6 Tommy Milone Orioles-Braves 313 697 44.9% .239
7 Corbin Burnes Brewers 451 1010 44.7% .180
8 Dallas Keuchel White Sox 427 960 44.5% .260
9 Shane Bieber Indians 551 1238 44.5% .136
10 Gio González White Sox 272 618 44.0% .249
SOURCE: Baseball Savant
Pitches in Gameday Zones 13 and 14.

In two innings of work totaling 55 pitches, Davies got just 19 swings. Just four were whiffs, while seven were foul balls; of the eight put into play, four were hit for exit velocities in excess of 100 mph, three of them hits in the second inning. Read the rest of this entry »


Yankees Hand Bieber a Shellacking While Cole Rolls

By the time Shane Bieber recorded his first out in Tuesday night’s American League Wild Card Series opener, the Yankees had already done what teams failed to do in seven of the 25-year-old righty’s 12 starts in 2020: score two runs. With a DJ LeMahieu bloop and an Aaron Judge blast, the Yankees staked themselves to an instant lead, and they continued to beat up on the presumptive AL Cy Young winner, cuffing him for seven runs before chasing him in the fifth inning. The marquee matchup between Bieber and Yankees ace Gerrit Cole turned into a one-sided rout, with the Yankees rolling to a 12-3 win in Cleveland.

Bieber, for as otherworldly as he was this year — he not only won the AL pitching triple crown by leading the league in wins, strikeouts, and ERA, but also led in FIP, WAR, K%, and K-BB% — did allow seven home runs, as if to hint that he was merely human. Two of those were on fastballs, one in the center of the strike zone, hit by the Reds’ Eugenio Suárez on August 4. In fact, that was the only hit out of the 28 fastballs Bieber threw down Broadway, just 11 of which were put into play. Judge didn’t have to know how rare it was for Bieber to leave one there to do business with it:

The home run — 108 mph off the bat, with an estimated distance of 399 feet — was Judge’s first since August 11, the same day on which he strained his right calf muscle. To that point, he led the majors in homers, but he landed on the Injured List a few days later, and re-injured the calf in his first game back on August 26. Since the initial injury, he hit just .205/.326/.231 in 46 plate appearances spread out over 47 days. While his exit velocity remained respectable, he didn’t elevate the ball with the same consistency, or come close to doing the same kind of damage:

Judge Batted Ball Profile, Pre- and Post-Injury
Split GB/FB GB% FB% EV LA xwOBA
Through 8/11 0.76 36.4% 47.7% 92.6 19.3 .418
Since 8/26 1.57 44.0% 28.0% 91.3 9.5 .277
SOURCE: Baseball Savant

Read the rest of this entry »


AL Wild Card Series Preview: Cleveland Indians vs. New York Yankees

As the final day of the season dawned, there were no fewer than six possible matchups for this series, with the Twins, White Sox, and Indians all having paths to second place in the AL Central and the number four seed, and likewise for the Yankees and Blue Jays in the AL East and the number five seed. The Yankees fell to the Marlins, 5-0, their sixth loss in the past eight games, but because the Blue Jays blew a 4-1 lead and lost to the Orioles, New York finished 33-27, barely holding onto second. Meanwhile the Indians dug their way out of a 6-2 hole against the Pirates, and only when the White Sox’s comeback from a 10-1 deficit stalled at 10-8, with the tying run at the plate in the bottom of the ninth on a questionable called strike was this matchup set.

The Indians finished with the better record, going 35-25, but a slightly worse run differential (+39 versus +45), but how the two teams got there is very different. The Yankees led the AL in scoring (5.25 runs per game) and wRC+ (116) while ranking sixth in run prevention (4.50 runs per game). The Indians, on the other hand, tied for second-to-last in the AL in scoring (4.13 runs per game) and were second-to-last in wRC+ (86), but they were the stingiest team in the AL, allowing just 3.48 runs per game. As this series will be played entirely at Progressive Field, the Yankees’ offensive advantage may not be all it’s cracked up to be.

Worth noting: Indians manager Terry Francona has been sidelined by gastrointestinal and blood clot issues for most of the season, managing just 14 games, during which his team went 8-6. First base coach Sandy Alomar Jr. has been serving as acting manager since mid-August and will likely remain in that capacity through the postseason, though Francona has entered the bubble to keep that option in play. The team has gone 28-18 on Alomar’s watch.

Rotations

Indians and Yankees AL Wild Card Series Starting Pitchers
Name IP K% BB% K-BB% HR/9 GB% EV Barrel% ERA FIP WAR
Shane Bieber 77.1 41.1% 7.1% 34.0% 0.81 48.4% 89.3 7.2% 1.63 2.06 3.2
Carlos Carrasco 68.0 29.3% 9.6% 19.6% 1.06 44.3% 88.0 8.3% 2.91 3.59 1.5
Zach Plesac 55.1 27.7% 2.9% 24.8% 1.30 39.3% 87.8 9.9% 2.28 3.39 1.5
Gerrit Cole 73.0 32.6% 5.9% 26.7% 1.73 37.4% 90.9 9.1% 2.84 3.89 1.5
Masahiro Tanaka 48.0 22.3% 4.1% 18.3% 1.69 43.3% 88.5 9.1% 3.56 4.42 0.8
J.A. Happ 49.1 21.4% 7.7% 13.8% 1.46 44.4% 88.1 5.1% 3.47 4.57 0.6
Deivi García 34.1 22.6% 4.1% 18.5% 1.57 33.3% 89.4 9.4% 4.98 4.15 0.8

Read the rest of this entry »


Team Entropy 2020: Suspenseful Sunday

Over the past two days, the playoff picture has begun to come into full focus. The Marlins, Reds, and Astros all clinched playoff berths on Friday night — the last of those not with a victory of their own but one by the Dodgers, of all teams — while the Rockies and Angels were eliminated. On Saturday, the Mets bit the dust as well. Thus as we head into the abbreviated season’s final day, the eight AL teams have been decided, albeit not all of the seedings, while 10 NL teams remain alive.

In the NL, the top four seeds have been secured: the Dodgers, Braves, Cubs (who clinched the NL Central on Saturday night), and Padres will be seeds 1-4 in that order. Still at stake are the middles of the NL East and Central standings:

NL Standings Through September 26
NL East W L W-L% GB IntraDiv Braves Marlins Phillies
Braves** 35 24 .593 24-16 6-4 5-5
Marlins* 30 29 .508 5 21-19 4-6 7-3
Phillies 28 31 .475 7 21-19 5-5 3-7
NL Central W L W-L% GB IntraDiv Cubs Cardinals Reds Brewers
Cubs** 33 26 .559 22-18 5-5 6-4 5-5
Cardinals 29 28 .509 3 21-18 5-5 6-4 4-5
Reds* 30 29 .508 3 21-19 4-6 4-6 6-4
Brewers 29 30 .492 4 19-20 5-5 5-4 4-6
NL West W L W-L% GB IntraDiv Dodgers Padres Giants
Dodgers** 42 17 .712 27-13 6-4 6-4
Padres* 36 23 .610 6 24-15 4-6 6-3
Giants 29 30 .492 13 18-21 4-6 3-6
SOURCE: Baseball-Reference
*clinched playoff berth
**clinched division title

In the NL Central, with the Brewers splitting Friday’s doubleheader with the Cardinals and then winning on Saturday as well while the Reds lost, the three teams enter Sunday separated by a game, with St. Louis hosting Milwaukee and Cincinnati at Minnesota on Sunday. Apparently, I missed a memo regarding the potential make-up doubleheader involving the Cardinals and Tigers; they would play one or two games in Detroit on Monday only if it they have the potential to give the Cardinals home-field advantage (no longer the case) or determine whether they’re in or out; if it’s seeding in the 5-8 range, they’ll be judged on winning percentage. Read the rest of this entry »


Team Entropy 2020: Gone to Seed

As we head into the final weekend of the abbreviated 2020 season, we still have only limited clarity about what the expanded postseason — which starts on Tuesday, September 29 — will look like. Eleven teams have clinched playoff berths, seven in the AL and four in the NL. Five have clinched home-field advantage for the Wild Card Series, and four have clinched division titles, but that still leaves 10 teams vying for the five remaining spots, with the lower half of the NL pool particularly murky. We won’t get any tiebreaker games, and so it might feel as though Team Entropy is just going through the motions, but as I’ve already noted, there’s still enough chaos involved to cause headaches for anybody trying to figure out the matchups from day to day, and there’s a significant possibility that teams will be playing meaningful games even into Monday (more on which below). In that sense, this silly playoff tournament has already started.

Once more, with feeling, here’s how the system works:

  • The division winners be seeded 1-3 within their respective leagues based on their won-loss records, the second place teams 4-6, and then the next two teams with the best records 7-8. For the best-of-three Wild Card Series, they’ll be matched up in the familiar 1-8, 2-7, 3-6 and 4-5 pairings, with the lower seed hosting all three games.
  • Within divisions, ties will first be broken on the basis of head-to-head records. Since teams haven’t played outside their divisions except against their interleague geographic counterparts, this is of use only for determining first, second, and third place within the division. If three teams in a division end up tied, combined head-to-head records against the other two teams will be used.
  • If head-to-head records are tied or not applicable, the next tiebreaker is intradivision record.
  • If teams have the same intradivision records, the next tiebreaker is record in the final 20 division games. If that doesn’t break the tie, then record over the final 21 games is used, and then onto final 22, 23, 24, and so forth until the tie is broken.

If it has any bearing upon seeding in the NL, commissioner Rob Manfred may mandate the Cardinals — who have just 58 games scheduled through Sunday due to all of their COVID-19 outbreak-related postponements — and Tigers may be ordered to play a doubleheader on Monday, September 28 to get to 60 games.

NL Standings Through September 24
NL East W L W-L% GB IntraDiv Braves Marlins Phillies Mets
Braves** 34 23 .596 24-16 6-4 5-5 6-4
Marlins 29 28 .509 5 21-19 4-6 7-3 4-6
Phillies 28 29 .491 6 21-19 5-5 3-7 6-4
Mets 26 31 .456 8 17-20 4-6 6-4 4-6
NL Central W L W-L% GB IntraDiv Cubs Cardinals Reds Brewers
Cubs* 32 25 .561 22-18 5-5 6-4 5-5
Cardinals 28 26 .519 2.5 20-16 5-5 6-4 3-3
Reds 29 28 .509 3 21-19 4-6 4-6 6-4
Brewers 27 29 .482 4.5 17-19 5-5 3-3 4-6
NL West W L W-L% GB IntraDiv Dodgers Padres Giants Rockies
Dodgers** 40 17 .702 27-13 6-4 6-4 7-3
Padres* 34 22 .607 5.5 21-15 4-6 5-1 7-3
Giants 28 28 .500 11.5 17-19 4-6 1-5 4-6
Rockies 25 31 .446 14.5 16-20 3-7 3-7 6-4
SOURCE: Baseball-Reference
*clinched playoff berth
**clinched division title

Read the rest of this entry »


The Padres Face a Postseason Without Mike Clevinger

When the Padres made the August 31 trade deadline’s biggest splash by acquiring Mike Clevinger from the Indians via a nine-player blockbuster, it was with an eye towards the 29-year-old righty taking the ball in the postseason, potentially as a Game 1 starter. While the team is tied for the NL’s second-best record (34-22) and headed to the playoffs for the first time since 2006, plans for Clevinger to figure prominently have been put on hold, as he left Wednesday’s start against the Angels after one inning due to biceps tightness.

After throwing seven shutout innings against the Giants on September 13, Clevinger had previously been scheduled to start on Saturday, September 18 against the Mariners, but he was scratched due to his first reported bout of soreness in his right biceps. After a successful bullpen session on Monday, he was declared good to go against the Angels, and he got off to a strong start, breezing through the first inning on 12 pitches by sandwiching strikeouts of David Fletcher and Mike Trout — both swinging at sliders — around a groundout by Jared Walsh:

Read the rest of this entry »


Nolan Arenado’s Season Is Over, but He and Rockies Are Still Stuck With Each Other

With a 2-9 stretch from September 8-19, the Rockies plummeted below .500 for the season and faded from the playoff picture. Though they’re still technically alive-ish in the race for the NL’s eighth seed, they’ve squandered their 11-3 start, and their Playoff Odds are down to 1.7%; they need to overtake at least four teams in the season’s five remaining days. Their task will be that much harder without Nolan Arenado, who last played on Saturday and who was placed on the Injured List on Monday with what the Rockies described as left AC joint inflammation and a left shoulder bone bruise. His season is over.

Listening to the broadcast of the Rockies-Giants game on Monday night, one of the announcers — I forget which side it was, as I was in the midst of flipping around MLB.TV — noted that Arenado has been so durable that “the last time he was on the Injured List, it wasn’t even called the Injured List” or words to that effect. In 2014, he missed 37 games after fracturing the middle finger of his left hand while sliding head-first into second base. From 2015-19, he averaged 157 games per year from 2015-19, playing more games (787) than all but three players, namely Eric Hosmer (795), Manny Machado (793), and Paul Goldschmidt (791).

Arenado initially injured his shoulder during the season’s fifth game, on July 29, while making the kind of diving stop of a Stephen Piscotty groundball that has typified the seven-time Gold Glove winner’s career:

Read the rest of this entry »


Jay Jaffe FanGraphs Chat – 9/22/20

2:01
Avatar Jay Jaffe: Good afternoon, folks, and welcome to the final week of the 2020 regular season. In connection with that, I have the latest installment of my Team Entropy series here: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/team-entropy-2020-still-on-the-tables/

2:02
Avatar Jay Jaffe: Yesterday I looked at Justin Verlander’s Tommy John surgery and its impact on the Astros’ postseason rotation as well as his pursuit of some big milestones https://blogs.fangraphs.com/justin-verlanders-tommy-john-surgery-throw…

2:04
Avatar Jay Jaffe: Meanwhile, not mine but i just finished reading a piece from The Athletic about the mid-’80s White Sox as early pioneers in biomechanics, complete with video of Tom Seaver’s drop-and-drive delivery https://theathletic.com/2079123/2020/09/22/with-tom-seaver-as-a-model-…

2:04
Avatar Jay Jaffe: OK, on with the show

2:04
Cito’s Mustache: If both #8 seeds were to upset the #1 seeds in the 3-game Wild Card series, would that give MLB pause to making the expanded postseason format permanent? A little chaos is good IMO. But too much, and the issue of fairness comes into question.

2:06
Avatar Jay Jaffe: First, I think it’s important to remember through all of this that the players have a say in any new postseason format. I suspect that they will have it drilled into them that expanded playoffs increasingly reward mediocrity and could hit them in their wallets. Any expansion beyond the pre-2020 format needs to incentivize teams to win their divisions

Read the rest of this entry »