A series between two teams full of unique individuals doesn’t really fit into a nice plot with themes, characters and nemeses. But when in setting up this series, it still made sense to highlight the depth and undervalued skills on the Athletics and the top-heavy, star-driven status of the Tigers team. Two plate appearances from Sunday’s game two between these two teams seemed to encapsulate the overall matchup well, and highlight many of those same themes.

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If you hadn’t been paying close attention to the Athletics and the Tigers, you might have a couple preconceptions about the matchup. Maybe “old, slow sluggers” vs “speedy upstart youngsters.” Or maybe “tradition” vs “moneyball two.” Or maybe even “offense and an ace” vs “pitching and defense.” Delve further into the numbers, though, and this matchup between the elephants and the tigers isn’t so easily monikered.

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It’s more fun to nerd it up in groups, I promise. You can only shake your fist at the computer so long before you look (and feel) like a crazy person. So, if you are in the bay area, come watch some wild card game wildness with FanGraphs friends and family at the 21st Amendment in Downtown San Francisco any time after four on October 5th. We’ll be upstairs, most likely, but you can always check my twitter feed closer to the event for updates.

Come heckle us, Friday October 5th at the 21st Amendment brewpub:

Eno Sarris, FanGraphs Writer, RotoGraphs Editor
Wendy Thurm, FanGraphs Writer *
Howard Bender, RotoGraphs Writer
Noah Jackson, Former MLB Scout and Founder, First Base Foundation
Patrick Newman, NPB Tracker
Erik Malinowski, Freelance and Deadspin
Steve Berman, Bay Area Sports Guy
Scott Willis, Bay Area Sports Guy and Crazy Crabbers
Hannah Ehrlich, River Avenue Blues *

We’ll see about Wendy and Hannah, as they will be at the A’s wild card game if it’s home. But the rest of us will definitely be hanging out, and there will be some free food and happy hour pricing. If you are under 21, it’s fine, 21A is a brew pub, you can come upstairs and talk with us over cheesy fried things like the rest of us aged baseball nerds, just with a soda in hand.

Something ridiculous happened. When ridiculous things happen, you’re often left wondering how much to worry about it, since, of course, it was ridiculous. It might be even more ridiculous to continue thinking about it.

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The Giants? They’re just a bunch of stat geeks. Look at some of the aspects of their play on the field, and it’s clear that this is not a club that sticks only with tradition. Talk to Bobby Evans, Vice President of Baseball Operations, and you get a sense of a team with a strong process that includes inputs from both the old and the new school of baseball. And this isn’t some sort of new phenomenon in San Francisco.

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In a piece of news that would have seemed impossible at one time, there’s scuttlebutt that New York Mets might be open to trading Ike Davis this offseason. A source told Adam Rubin of ESPNNY that the option of moving Davis in order to both upgrade the team elsewhere and move Lucas Duda to his natural position is on the table. Though much of Queens would be dismayed — “We like Ike” T-shirts abound — it’s definitely possible that this is the right move for the Metropolitans.

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There’s a natural ebb and flow to every pitcher’s season, but it comes in fits and starts instead of the smoother information stream that a position player provides. So, every five days, our brains attempt to fit a narrative over these disparate pieces of information. That’s natural, if not always useful.

Take Adam Wainwright for instance. In his last three starts, he’s given up 13 earned runs, 16 total runs, 31 baserunners, and a 14-to-9 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 13.2 innings. It’s tempting to call that a wall. But what about the three-start stretch at the end of June, when he gave up 12 earned runs, 28 baserunners and had a 18-to-4 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 17.1 innings? That was just a bump in the road now that we’ve seen what he’s done since.

Of course, those numbers are not completely equivalent. And if we drill down further, we might find cause for concern when it comes to the Tommy John returnee in St. Louis.

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Commander Dave Cameron already declared Angel Pagan the most underrated player in baseball last week, but when you shift the universe from league to a team, things change. Ask a Giants fan how great Pagan has been this year, for example, and you’ll probably get as much gushing as you’ll get for a newcomer. On the other hand, you might be able to ask that same fan about Gregor Blanco and get nothing but a shrug in response.

That’s too bad, because Blanco might be the most underrated player on the Giants.

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You know the saying — “It’s not about the size of the boat’s engine, it’s about the motion of the ocean.” Pretty sure that’s it. The point is, despite the strong correlation between fastball velocity and strikeout rate, there are plenty of pitchers that make less gas work by varying speeds, varying location, and varying movement.

Jack Moore did an excellent job of talking about Tom Layne’s history and his ability to get whiffs from batters on both sides of the plate earlier today. He’s certainly not doing it with gas — his fastball barely averages 90 mph — and though he does have a curveball and a slider/cutter, he’s probably not doing it with different speeds. He mostly works in the high 70s to the high 80s. And the motion of his ocean? Neither the x-movement or the y-movement on his primary breaking pitch, the curveball, could be considered elite.

Suddenly we’re talking about the struggling 28-year-old starter in Triple-A, not the sizzling reliever that just struck out the meat of the revamped Dodgers lineup two days ago. Except that Layne has a trick up his sleeve that is used less often these days: multiple arm slots.

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