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.

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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:

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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:

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2:01	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	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	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	Jay Jaffe: OK, on with the show

2:06

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

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The regular season has just six days remaining, and while seven teams (five in the AL, two in the NL) have clinched playoff berths, there’s still a fair bit to be decided as far as seedings and matchups, particularly in the NL. Unfortunately, we won’t get any tiebreaker games this year — everything will be decided mathematically, possibly including who’s in and who’s out — but the odds for confusion are still high given the unfamiliar format, and some of the jockeying for position could go down to the wire. Hence, it’s time for another Team Entropy installment.

The short version of what you need to know about the format is that each league’s playoff slates will include the division winners (who will be seeded 1-3), the second-place teams (seeded 4-6), and then the two other teams in the league with the best records (seeded 7-8, and deemed the Wild Card teams). For what’s being called the Wild Card Series, teams will pair off in the familiar bracket format: 1-8, 2-7, 3-6, and 4-5, with all three games at the higher-seeded team’s ballpark in an effort to provide them with some kind of advantage. Even with no crowds in ballparks this year, home teams have a .546 winning percentage, higher than it’s been since 2009 (.549).

If teams are tied for spots after Sunday, or if it has any bearing upon seeding, commissioner Rob Manfred may mandate the Cardinals — who have just 58 games scheduled right now due to all of their COVID-19 outbreak-related postponements — and Tigers play a doubleheader on Monday, September 28 to get to 60 games. Beyond that, ties will be broken on the following basis:

• Head-to-head record (if applicable). 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.

First, we’ll take a look at the Senior Circuit, where there’s much more up in the air:

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Getting old is for the birds. Since turning 37 on February 20, as the 2020 season has gone through its starts and stops, Justin Verlander has dealt with triceps soreness, a groin strain that required surgery and, after throwing six strong innings in his Opening Day start on July 24, a forearm strain. On Saturday, he announced that he would need Tommy John surgery, not only ruling out what the Astros hoped would be a comeback for this postseason, but almost certainly sidelining him for all of 2021, sending him into free agency with just one outing over a two-year span, and preventing him from attaining upper-tier spots in the all-time rankings of some significant categories.

Verlander broke the news himself via Instagram, saying in a video that he felt something in his elbow during Wednesday’s simulated game, which led to an MRI. Here’s the written statement from that post:

After consulting with several of the best doctors, it has become clear that I need Tommy John surgery. I was hopeful that I would be able to return to competition in 2020, however, during my simulated game unfortunately the injury worsened. Obviously I’m extremely disappointed, but I will not let this slow down my aspirations for my career. I will approach this rehab the only way I know, attack and don’t look back. I’m confident that with a proper rehabilitation program and my unwavering commitment that this surgery will ultimately lengthen my career as opposed to shorten it. I can’t thank my teammates, coaches, the front office and my fans enough for the support they have given me so far in this process. I’m eager to get through this recovery and back on the field to continue to do what I love.

This isn’t entirely a shock, but it is a bummer. In the wake of his forearm strain, some outlets had reported that Verlander would be out for the season, though the pitcher and the team didn’t rule out a comeback. He resumed throwing of flat ground in mid-August, off a mound in the first week of September, and had gone as high as 55-60 pitches in bullpen sessions before Wednesday, when he threw a total of 75 pitches, though only 24 game during his simulated game. The Astros hoped that he could make one more simulated start on Monday and then one competitive start before the postseason, but Verlander’s ulnar collateral ligament wasn’t buying it. Read the rest of this entry »

NEW YORK — Clint Frazier is no longer the future of the Yankees outfield — or, as it has sometimes seemed over the past few years, of somebody else’s — he’s the present. The 26-year-old righty-swinging redhead, who began the season toiling at the Yankees’ alternate training site in Scranton, Pennsylvania, homered for the second straight night on Wednesday, helping the Yankees overtake the Blue Jays for second place in the AL East. During a season in which Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton have played a combined total of 35 games due to injuries, in which age has finally caught up to Brett Gardner, and in which the 2019 magic has worn off of Mike Tauchman, Frazier has shown that both his lightning-quick bat and much-maligned glove are ready for prime time.

On Tuesday and Wednesday night in the Bronx while facing the Blue Jays — who came to town half a game ahead of the Yankees in the AL East standings — the Yankees erupted for 33 runs, winning by lopsided scores of 20-6 and 13-2 while hitting at least six homers in back-to-back games for the first time in franchise history; they added another 10 runs and six homers on Thursday night. While Stanton and Judge went hitless in their respective returns from injuries, and AL wRC+ leader (!) DJ LeMahieu and major-league home run leader (!) Luke Voit produced their share of fireworks on both nights, Frazier was right in the middle of the action, collecting two hits, two walks, and a homer in each game. Using MLB.com’s fantastic new Film Room feature, we can play the hits from those two nights in one clip:

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NEW YORK — On Wednesday night, DJ LeMahieu got it started for the Yankees, as he has so often done since arriving from Colorado in January 2019. Blue Jays starter Tanner Roark, having missed the strike zone with his first pitch of the night, left a 90.5 mph four-seam fastball in the upper outside corner of the zone — an area where the right-handed LeMahieu rarely swings — and this time the 32-year-old second baseman reached out and poked it onto the short porch in Yankee Stadium’s right field for a solo home run. The Yankees, who had dropped 20 runs on the Blue Jays on Tuesday night while retaking second place in the AL East, added another 13 more on Wednesday via a season-high season seven homers, including three by backup catcher Kyle Higashioka and another by LeMahieu. They did all of this despite Giancarlo Stanton and Aaron Judge going hitless in their respective returns from injury.

“DJ just continued to set the tone for us,” said manager Aaron Boone, a night after LeMahieu had gone 4-for-6 with a homer and five RBI. Here’s the first-inning shot:

LeMonster pic.twitter.com/yq2OZDz2vY

— New York Yankees (@Yankees) September 16, 2020

The home run was LeMahieu’s fifth to lead off his team’s half of a game, moving him into the major league lead:

It was the 11th time LeMahieu has hit a leadoff homer in his two seasons as a Yankee; in that time, only Springer (15) has more, though until Wednesday, Acuña and Joc Pederson had as many in the same span. Read the rest of this entry »

2:01	Jay Jaffe: Good afternoon and beware the Ides of September. As I wait for the queue to fill up, here’s the first look at MLB’s freshly-announced playoff schedule:

2:01	Jay Jaffe: MLB Communications @MLB_PR The 2020 @MLB Postseason will begin with the AL Wild Card Series on Tuesday, 9/29, while Game One of the 2020 World Series at Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas will be played on Tuesday, 10/20. 15 Sep 2020

2:02	Jay Jaffe: This might be too much baseball: Lindsey Adler @lindseyadler No travel = no travel days for the DS and CS. The World Series will end on October 28. at the latest. 15 Sep 2020

2:02	Jay Jaffe: Note that after the so-called Wild Card round, which will be played at the sites of each league’s top four seeds, the rest of the games will be at neutral sites, hence no Dodgers in Dodger Stadium, etc.

2:03

Jay Jaffe: Because ties will be settled in the most exciting way of all — mathematically — this year’s Team Entropy is a bit less chaotic than the past, but I hope still helpful in explaining how this playoff format works. Here’s the NL picture https://blogs.fangraphs.com/team-entropy-2020-more-like-un-tropy-right…

2:04	Jay Jaffe: and the AL: https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/team-entropy-2020-the-pecking-order/

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On Monday, I delved into what chaos there is to be had when it comes to the 2020 playoff picture in the National League. The answer, alas, is not very much, at least relative to a normal season. Alongside Major League Baseball’s combination of health and safety protocols and the expansion of each league’s playoff field from five teams to eight has come the decision to settle all seeding matters — including, potentially, who grabs a spot and who just misses — via the gripping excitement of mathematics instead of those boring tiebreaker games. MLB’s reasoning is that going the math route will minimize travel and keep the schedule as compact as possible during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, and on the one hand I get it, but somewhere a McKinsey consultant must be proud of this bloodless, ultra-efficient solution. It stinks on ice, but like so much else, we’ll do our best at Entropy Central to play the hand that we’ve been dealt while hoping that things return to normalcy in 2021.

To refresh your memory regarding the format that was announced on Opening Day, each league’s playoff slates will include the division winners (who will be seeded 1-3), the second-place teams (seeded 4-6), and then the two other teams in the league with the best records (seeded 7-8, and deemed the Wild Card teams). For the first round, teams will be matched up in the familiar bracket format: 1-8, 2-7, 3-6, and 4-5, with all three games at the higher-seeded team’s ballpark in an effort to provide them with some kind of advantage.

If teams are tied for spots after the schedule has been completed, ties will be broken on the following basis:

• Head-to-head record (if applicable). Since teams haven’t played outside their divisions except against their interleague geographic counterparts, this is of use only for determining placement within the division. Presumably, if three teams were to end up tied, combined head-to-head records against the other two teams would be used, but with a minimum of four games separating any three teams in a division, that possibility appears to be remote.
• 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.

Read the rest of this entry »