Every year when the postseason rolls around, we enjoyers of baseball try our best to make sure we’re properly appreciating the history unfolding on the field before us. We want to acknowledge when we’ve just watched a game so magical that it will be spoken of in tones of awe and disbelief for years to come. Downstream of that, we like to evaluate whether a game, a series, or even an entire postseason was a good one, mentally sorting them into tiers with other postseasons we’ve watched. Some measures of “good” are subjective, coming down to our personal preferences for certain strategies, styles of play, narratives, teams, or players. Other measures are more universally agreed upon and objectively quantifiable. In particular, most neutral observers value a close, exciting game, one that features both tension and action to keep observers engaged.

Win Probability Added (WPA) provides a reasonable proxy for measuring both tension and excitement. At the plate appearance level, it uses the score, inning, and base-out state (i.e. runner on second, two outs) to calculate a team’s win expectancy based on historical outcomes. The difference in a team’s win expectancy after a plate appearance relative to what it was before it represents the WPA during the plate appearance in question. WPA will be negative for the team whose odds of winning decreased while being positive for their opponent, but in this context, we’re going to focus on the magnitude of the change in win expectancy. Without a rooting interest, it’s less about which team wins and more about seeing big plays that impact the outcome of the game. Games with a large quantity of WPA have a lot of high-impact plays and lead changes that allow teams to pass win probability back and forth between one another.

Using WPA, we can evaluate the quality of the action in a given game by both looking at the average WPA per plate appearance and by adding up the game’s total WPA. Both methods provide useful insight. Average WPA per plate appearance controls for the variable number of plate appearances in a game, since games with more plate appearances have more opportunities to accumulate WPA. Sometimes that accumulation constitutes empty calories; other times it’s more substantial. Ultimately, we want the games that top the charts from both perspectives. Read the rest of this entry »

I’m using a new format for our postseason managerial report cards this year. In the past, I went through every game from every manager, whether they played 22 games en route to winning the World Series or got swept out of the Wild Card round. To be honest, I hated writing those brief blurbs. No one is all that interested in the manager who ran out the same lineup twice, or saw his starters get trounced and used his best relievers anyway because the series is so short. This year, I’m sticking to the highlights, and grading only the managers who survived until at least their League Championship series. I already covered Stephen Vogt, Carlos Mendoza, and Aaron Boone. Today, I’m looking at Dave Roberts.

My goal is to evaluate each manager in terms of process, not results. If you bring in your best pitcher to face their best hitter with the series on the line, that’s a good decision regardless of the outcome. Try a triple steal with the bases loaded only to have the other team make four throwing errors to score three runs? I’m probably going to call that a blunder even though it worked out. Managers do plenty of other things — getting team buy-in behind closed doors for new strategies or unconventional bullpen usage is a skill I find particularly valuable — but as I have no insight into how that’s accomplished or how each manager differs, I can’t exactly assign grades for it.

I’m also purposefully avoiding vague qualitative concerns like “trusting your veterans because they’ve been there before.” Playoff coverage lovingly focuses on clutch plays by proven performers, but Luke Weaver and Brent Honeywell were also important contributors this October. Forget trusting your veterans; the playoffs are about trusting your best players. Mookie Betts is important because he’s great, not because he already had two rings. There’s nothing inherently good about having been around a long time; when I’m evaluating decisions, “but he’s a veteran” just doesn’t enter my thought process. Let’s get to it. Read the rest of this entry »

I’m using a new format for our postseason managerial report cards this year. In the past, I went through every game from every manager, whether they played 22 games en route to winning the World Series or got swept out of the Wild Card round. To be honest, I hated writing those brief blurbs. No one is all that interested in the manager who ran out the same lineup twice, or saw his starters get trounced and used his best relievers anyway because the series is so short. This year, I’m sticking to the highlights, and grading only the managers who survived until at least their League Championship series. I already covered Stephen Vogt and Carlos Mendoza. Today, I’m looking at Aaron Boone.

My goal is to evaluate each manager in terms of process, not results. If you bring in your best pitcher to face their best hitter in a huge spot, that’s a good decision regardless of the outcome. Try a triple steal with the bases loaded only to have the other team make four throwing errors to score three runs? I’m probably going to call that a blunder even though it worked out. Managers do plenty of other things — getting team buy-in behind closed doors for new strategies or unconventional bullpen usage is a skill I find particularly valuable — but as I have no insight into how that’s accomplished or how each manager differs, I can’t exactly assign grades for it.

I’m also purposefully avoiding vague qualitative concerns like “trusting your veterans because they’ve been there before.” Playoff coverage lovingly focuses on clutch plays by proven performers, but Luke Weaver and Brent Honeywell were also important contributors this October. Forget trusting your veterans; the playoffs are about trusting your best players. Juan Soto is important because he’s great, not because he won the 2019 World Series. There’s nothing inherently good about having been around a long time; when I’m evaluating decisions, “but he’s a veteran” just doesn’t enter my thought process. Let’s get to it. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s not hard to remember who had the biggest hits of the postseason, nor is it hard to remember which superstar sluggers came up short. But what about the components of offense that don’t take place at the plate? This past October had no shortage of riveting plays on the basepaths, so I thought it would be fun to look back at some of the most skillful baserunning, some of the least skillful baserunning, and either way, some of the most consequential baserunning plays of the 2024 playoffs.

To calculate baserunning value, the bright minds at Baseball Savant have developed a system that estimates runs above or below average for 10 different categories of “advance opportunities” on balls in play. There is certainly room for disagreement with the way the automatic system evaluates plays, but these numbers are a great jumping-off point. That’s especially true when it comes to bad plays, for which there is a clear delineation between the most harmful baserunning decisions and more forgivable mistakes.

Six runners ran into an out that cost their team 0.80 runs or more this postseason. No other baserunning play scored worse than -0.20 runner runs. Here’s a chart and a video compilation of those six disastrous decisions. I’ve also included Savant’s seventh-most detrimental baserunning play of the postseason for comparison:

The decisions by Bohm and Malloy to try for second, as well as third base coach Luis Rojas’ choice to wave Torres home, were all varying degrees of justifiable. That’s not to say any of them were smart plays, but it’s important to remember that getting thrown out doesn’t necessarily mean a baserunner made a mistake. A player who never gets thrown out on the bases isn’t taking enough risks.

Stanton’s out at home is at the top of the list for a reason. It was tough to watch him lumbering down the third base line in the moment, and it’s even harder to watch in hindsight when I know the outcome. It makes me feel like I’m watching a horror movie, but instead of wanting to scream at Stanton to stay out of the basement, I want to tell him to hold up no matter what Rojas was signaling. I could say the same of Perez, who is every bit as slow as Stanton. Juan Soto made a terrific throw, but all the same, third base coach Vance Wilson had no business sending Perez on that play. As for the inelegant slide into home, that’s all on Perez.

That being said, I hesitate to call either of those plays the worst example of baserunning in the postseason. For one thing, it’s clear from the clips that their coaches were more to blame. What’s more, it would be pretty boring of me to pick one of the biggest, slowest players in the game as the culprit behind the worst baserunning flub of October. So that brings me to Winker in Game 1 of the NLCS.

Here’s that play one more time:

By my count, Winker made three baserunning blunders in a very short time. His first mistake was taking too far of a turn around second base. His second mistake was realizing his first mistake and briefly turning back toward second before changing his mind once again and continuing toward third. His third mistake was giving up far too easily. He didn’t bolt for third and try to slide under Max Muncy’s tag, nor did he force the Dodgers to run him down, which might have given Jose Iglesias a chance to reach second base. Rather than putting up a fight, he basically just admitted defeat.

The Dodgers went on to win that game 9-0. Winker’s poor baserunning was hardly the only thing that did the Mets in. Still, if he’d held up at second base, it would have been the only time in the entire game the Mets had a runner in scoring position with no outs. Instead, Winker killed what little momentum the Mets almost mustered. So, of the 513 ball-in-play baserunning events that Baseball Savant scored during the playoffs, this gets my vote as the very worst of the lot.

I also went back and watched every caught stealing and pickoff play of the postseason to find the worst bit of baserunning that didn’t come on a ball in play. None of the straight-up caught stealing plays stand out to me as particularly egregious, although I made a compilation video so you can judge for yourselves. The compilation also includes Matt Vierling getting caught at second — a play that technically wasn’t considered as a stolen base attempt, presumably because it would have been officially scored a wild pitch if he were safe:

As for the pickoffs, all four look embarrassing for the baserunners. Pickoffs almost always do. Here they are, and I apologize in advance that the clip of Trevino’s pickoff on MLB Film Room is incomplete. But it’s not like you can’t extrapolate what’s going to happen. I also included Anthony Rizzo’s TOOTBLAN is Game 2 of the ALCS. Like the Vierling play, it technically wasn’t scored as a pickoff because it started with a ball in the dirt, but it’s close enough for our purposes:

The clip of Francisco Lindor is a bad look for the typically excellent baserunner. The camera shows that Lindor misread pitcher Brent Honeywell and started to take off for second base far too soon. Honeywell made him pay. Rizzo’s rundown was embarrassing, too, although after seeing the way Winker responded in a somewhat similar situation, I’ll give Rizzo credit for making a bit more of an effort.

The very worst of all those caught stealing and pickoff plays came just before Rizzo’s slip-up. Two batters earlier, Jazz Chisholm Jr. also ran into an out at second, and this one was a proper pickoff. It was the only instance out of all the caught stealing and pickoff plays I showed you in which the runner was already safely in scoring position with no outs. There was little reason for Chisholm to take such an aggressive lead toward third base. (Apparently the Yankees were planning to attempt a double steal, but Chisholm took off too early). According to Baseball Reference WPA, Chisholm’s pickoff was the most harmful caught stealing or pickoff play of the postseason (-0.076 WPA). It was also, by far, the worst caught stealing or pickoff play by championship Win Probability Added, reducing the Yankees’ chances of winning the World Series by 1.21%. And yet, I can’t blame Chisholm too much for his aggressive leads because, as you’re about to see, he was also responsible for some of the very best baserunning plays we saw this past October.

It’s significantly harder to identify the best baserunning plays than the worst. Simply put, it’s much easier to find plays in which a runner ran into an out than to separate the best advancement decisions from more commonplace ones. A runner goes from first to third on a single almost every game; when is that good baserunning as opposed to routine execution? All this to say, there aren’t any positive baserunning plays worth upwards of 0.80 runner runs on Baseball Savant. The top three plays of the postseason each added 0.25 runs of value. The next six came in at +0.24 runs. That said, these data still offer a good jumping-off point for this exercise.

I went digging for the top 10 baserunning plays on balls in play this postseason and came back with 11 due to a tie at the bottom of the list. Here are those 11 plays in chart form:

I wasn’t blown away by any of the three plays with a +0.25 run value. All three were the result of at least one defensive miscue and none involved a competitive throw. Understanding how to take advantage of poor defense is certainly a skill, as is moving fast enough to take an extra base without the defense even bothering to make a throw. Much like how the best defenders make tough plays look routine, the best baserunners can make low-percentage advancements look easy. Still, take a look at these three clips, and I’m sure you’ll forgive me for skipping past them as I try to find the best baserunning plays of the playoffs.

I was much more impressed with a few of the plays that had a +0.24 and +0.23 run value. But let’s start with the five that didn’t turn my head. Lindor made a nice slide to secure a double in Game 2 of the Wild Card Series, but he was only safe because Turang couldn’t hold onto the ball to apply the tag. Meanwhile, Stott bolted his way to an RBI triple in Game 2 of the NLDS, but everyone was safe without a competitive throw.

Moving on to the NLCS, Ohtani scored from first on a Mookie Betts double in Game 1, but he did so without a throw. Indeed, the Mets pretty clearly knew he was going to score well before the ball landed in the cutoff man’s glove. Then, in Game 4 of the NLCS, Marte doubled because Betts badly misread a groundball to right field. Finally, Volpe earned 0.23 runs of baserunning credit for a double in the World Series, but he would have been out if Lux hadn’t lost the baseball. Here’s a compilation of those five plays for your viewing pleasure:

Now, let’s get to the three plays I really liked. Back in the NLDS, Lux made a great read on an Enrique Hernández single to shallow center and sprinted from first to third, beating Jackson Merrill’s throw. Meadows also made a terrific read on a pop fly in the ALDS, turning what could have been a routine out into a double. Here’s what those two plays looked like:

However, of these 11 baserunning plays, one clearly stood above the rest. Here is Chisholm scoring from second on an Alex Verdugo single in all its glory:

This was terrific television from start to end. The mind games going on between Chisholm and Michael Lorenzen were almost palpable. The footwork dance battle between Chisholm and Bobby Witt Jr. was delightful. Chisholm’s decision not to slide could have been disastrous, but instead it worked out perfectly (although the home plate umpire might disagree). And the greater context of the game only makes the play more thrilling. Chisholm was only at second base because of a controversial safe call on a stolen base earlier in the inning. The umpire on the field called him safe. The umpires in New York found the replay evidence inconclusive, even though it seemed pretty clear to the average viewer that Chisholm was out. While a less courageous baserunner might have exercised more caution after surviving by the skin of his teeth, Chisholm remained aggressive. It paid off.

According to Baseball Reference WPA, Verdugo’s single was the 10th most valuable ball in play (i.e. non-homer) of the postseason. A few of those nine other plays involved good baserunning, but there were none, I’d argue, in which good baserunning was quite as essential to the shift in win probability. Take a look for yourself. (Side note: While putting this compilation together, I learned that MLB film room won’t let you make a video with the word “balls” in the title. Seems like a design flaw.)

So, Chisholm gets my vote for the best ball-in-play baserunning play of the postseason. And that’s not all. He also provided the two most consequential stolen bases of the postseason, according to Baseball Reference WPA and cWPA. Not only that, but those two stolen bases came three pitches apart in the top of the 10th inning of Game 1 of the World Series. Another three pitches later, he scored what would have been the winning run if not for Freddie Freeman’s walk-off grand slam. Even without a compilation video of the other 60 stolen bases this October, I feel confident giving Chisholm the crown for the best stolen base sequence of the playoffs. Here’s a look at the complete series of events:

None of the plays I wrote about today will be remembered for nearly as long as Freeman’s big hits, Gerrit Cole’s valiant efforts, or the poor defense that ultimately sunk the Yankees in Game 5. But I love writing about baserunning precisely because it gets far less attention than most other aspects of the game. I’m glad I had the chance to look back on all this action on the basepaths before we all turn our attention to the offseason ahead.

NEW YORK — By closing out the Yankees with an unexpected World Series-clinching save two days after his brilliant Game 3 start put the Dodgers on the brink of a title, Walker Buehler had made a statement. Now, speaking to Fox Sports’ Ken Rosenthal and millions of viewers moments after striking out Alex Verdugo on a knuckle curve in the dirt, he had a message: “For our organization, we deserve this. We’ve been playing really good baseball for a lot of years. Everyone talks shit about 2020 and whatever, but there’s not much they can say about it now.”

Buehler was referring to the way that the Dodgers’ streak of 12 consecutive playoff appearances, which includes 11 NL West flags and three previous pennants, had been downplayed by some critics because the team not only had won only one championship during that epic run, but also because its lone title had followed the pandemic-shortened 2020 season. For many of the dozen core members who have remained with the team since (or in Enrique Hernández’s case, returned after a stint elsewhere), the application of that asterisk chafed.

“Get that Mickey Mouse shit out of your mouth,” said a champagne-and-beer-soaked Max Muncy during the ensuing clubhouse celebration, referring to the slight. “Now it’s two [championships], baby. Now it’s two… What are you going to say now?” Read the rest of this entry »

Since the start of 2013, the Dodgers have been the best team in baseball. Over that 12-season span, they’ve won the National League West 11 times, made it to the NLCS seven times, and made it to the World Series four times. Their 1,215 regular season wins are 95 more than the team in second place, and their 64 postseason wins are also the most in the game. Despite all that, until late Wednesday night, they’d only managed one championship. What deserves to go down as one of the most impressive dynasties in the history of the game has been consistently denied that sort of recognition because of the delightful, infuriating unpredictability of playoff baseball. During an absolutely wild World Series Game 5, that unpredictability finally worked in the Dodgers’ favor.

This paragraph is just a list of things that happened during Game 5, so hold on tight. There was a brief no-hit bid from one starter and a disastrous, abortive start from the other. There were monster home runs, broken bat singles, seeing-eye grounders, great defensive plays, calamitous errors, inexcusable mental mistakes, a five-run inning, a five-run comeback, unearned runs, nearly catastrophic baserunning decisions, a catcher’s interference, a disengagement penalty, a surprisingly high number of sacrifice flies, a starter coming in to get the save on one-day’s rest, and, I’m absolutely certain, a bunch of other stuff that I’m too fried to remember. The only thing that didn’t happen, thankfully, was two ding dongs grabbing Mookie Betts. In the end, the Dodgers were the team left standing, securing a 7-6 victory over the Yankees at Yankee Stadium for their eighth World Series title in franchise history and the second in the past five years. Read the rest of this entry »

NEW YORK — Anthony Volpe’s go-ahead grand slam in the third inning will be what Yankees fans remember most from Game 4 of the World Series.

It was the highest-leverage swing of his young career, the most pivotal play in the most important game this organization has played in at least 15 years. It was the main reason why in the ninth inning, once the game was well out of reach, the majority of the 49,000-plus fans at Yankee Stadium were chanting his last name, which Volpe said was “definitely number one” on his list of coolest moments. It restored the Yankees some level of dignity as they avoided getting swept out of the Fall Classic with an 11-4 blowout win over the Dodgers.

Indeed, if the Yankees pull off a miraculous comeback and become the first team to win the World Series after losing the first three games, Volpe’s blast will go down as the biggest turning point in the State of New York since the Battle of Saratoga. If the improbable happens — if the home run is going to be more than a fun little footnote to just another failed season — we’ll have plenty of time to rhapsodize about the local kid’s signature Yankee Moment. For now, though, I’d like to dig into the two other runs that Volpe scored in Game 4 and the events that led up to them, as they offer a window into the most important element he brings to the Yankees offense: his baserunning. Read the rest of this entry »

Scheduling a bullpen game in the World Series is, to some extent, outside Dave Roberts’ control. More than half of his useful starting pitchers are on the IL, so he has to do something. Game 4 isn’t the perfect spot for Johnny Wholestaff — the way MLB’s playoff format works, it’s the only game of the series that isn’t adjacent to an off day — but it’s also the only spot in a four-man rotation that’s guaranteed to only come up once.

The Dodgers’ manager was fortunate, however, in that by the time Game 4 rolled around, his team was already up 3-0 in the series. No team has ever overturned such a deficit in World Series play, and only once in baseball history has a team come back from 3-0 in any best-of-seven series. This we all knew going in. I was mildly surprised to learn that history is even less kind to clubs that spot their opponents the first three games of a Fall Classic: Before this season, teams with the opportunity to sweep a World Series had won Game 4 21 times in 24 attempts.

So Roberts entrusted Game 4 not just to his bullpen, but to his low-leverage guys: Ben Casparius, Daniel Hudson, Landon Knack, and Brent Honeywell. Sure enough, his team lost. Read the rest of this entry »

NEW YORK — When Freddie Freeman sprained his right ankle on September 26, the Dodgers had good reason to fear that his injury would be season-ending. Few could have envisioned that Freeman — who somehow managed to return from a six-week injury in a week, and to hobble through the National League Division Series and Championship Series — could play up to his usual high standard, let alone repeatedly etch his name in the record books. In Game 4 of the World Series on Tuesday night, the 35-year-old first baseman did so while providing a sense of déjà vu all over again. With his second two-run first-inning homer into Yankee Stadium’s short porch in as many nights, he put the Dodgers in a position to clinch a championship, though unlike Monday, they weren’t able to hold the Yankees down for nine innings, and lost 11-4.

Freeman’s fourth home run of this World Series came against Luis Gil and followed a one-out Mookie Betts double down the right field line. After Gil fell behind in the count 2-1, he put a belt-high slider on the outer edge of the plate. Freeman connected, launching a low, arcing drive 106.6 mph into the seats and temporarily sucking all the oxygen out of the Yankee Stadium fans as they faced the possibility of a sweep.

Read the rest of this entry »

“What if they made the whole pitching staff out of high-leverage relievers?” That line of thinking has infiltrated baseball over the past 15 years, and you can see why. The Dodgers built their team around it, and used it to perfection in the first three games of the World Series. When the Yankees weren’t dealing with three solid starters attacking the lineup in short bursts, they were facing an endless array of pitchers who sit in the upper 90s with venomous breaking balls. No wonder the Yankees only scored seven total runs across those three games.

In Game 4, the Dodgers asked another question: What if you made the whole pitching staff out of swingmen? Dave Roberts and the front office always planned on a bullpen game; they’ve been doing those all October. But this one was a wholly different animal than the efforts against the Padres and Mets, and the Yankees took advantage.

Want an example of how it was different? Ben Casparius drew the start, and Roberts gave him two innings, no questions asked. He was shaky as can be. Three walks, a 105-mph double off the top of the wall in dead center, and a few hard-hit balls besides; he spent the entirety of his two innings of work on the ropes, faced 10 batters, and was lucky to escape having only allowed one run. Read the rest of this entry »