Pitchers learn and develop different pitches, and they do so at varying stages of their lives. It might be a curveball in high school, a cutter in college, or a changeup in A-ball. Sometimes the addition or refinement is a natural progression — graduating from Pitching 101 to advanced course work — and often it’s a matter of necessity. In order to get hitters out as the quality of competition improves, a pitcher needs to optimize his repertoire.

In this installment of the series, we’ll hear from three pitchers — Ron Darling, Jack Morris, and Tyler Thornburg — on how they learned and developed their change-of-pace pitches.

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Ron Darling, Former All-Star

“When I first started throwing a split, I was one of those pitchers who could never develop a changeup. I was in the minor leagues with Al Jackson, who was a crafty left-hander in his day, and he taught me a screwball. He used to throw one. I got very adept at it, but it made my arm hurt. I had to develop a change-of-pace pitch that didn’t hurt my elbow, and that’s how the split-finger came to be.

“It was an era where the pitch was popular. Roger Craig taught it to a lot of pitchers, but it was a split-finger fastball for those guys. For me it was more of a forkball. It was something soft that I could combine with my fastball and hard curveball.

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As soon as any World Series is over, it’s fair to wonder how the most recent champion stacks up when compared to the history. And while sometimes the numbers are downright laughable, the 2018 Red Sox have been pretty extreme. In the regular season, they won five more games than anyone else. In the playoffs, they lost just once per series while eliminating the three other best teams in the game. Sometimes, you think about the history because you think you’re obligated. In this case, we look to the history because it seems like the Red Sox might’ve done something historic. It feels like this might’ve been one of the all-time greats.

I’ve run some numbers in order to see what we’ve got. I should acknowledge right here there’s no perfect, agreed-upon way to do this. There’s no ideal measure of a team overall. Does it matter how good a team is for seven months, or is it only the playoffs that matter, provided you do just enough to make it in in the first place? There are arguments to go in either direction, but for my purposes here, I’ve simply combined regular-season numbers with postseason numbers. The postseason sample, of course, is dwarfed by the regular-season sample, but that’s how I feel like it should be. You might have another opinion, and so you might trust your own analysis. Below, I’ll quickly present my own.

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For the second straight year, the Dodgers’ season has ended in a World Series appearance but not a World Series victory. While the Red Sox’ four-games-to-one win might show up in history as something of a blowout, the Dodgers were one key hit away from victory in Game One. If they’d also held onto a fifth-inning lead in Game Two and an eighth-inning lead in Game Four, we’d be talking about a great Dodgers team finally winning it all.

It didn’t happen that way, though — and it wasn’t because the Red Sox wanted it more or because the Dodgers’ analytics failed them. Sometimes baseball happens. It happened to the Dodgers, and in the end, the more deserving team won.

Win or lose, the Dodgers were going to face a lot of questions this offseason. Here are the four most-pressing questions in need of an answer.

Bring Back Clayton Kershaw?

Clayton Kershaw could make the decision easy for everyone by not opting out of the two years and $65 million he has left on his contract. There are plenty of concerns with Kershaw: his velocity has declined and he’s relying on his slider more than ever. The future Hall of Famer will begin next season at 31 years old, hardly an elder, but certainly past his prime. Despite those concerns, Kershaw started 31 games in 2018 and pitched 191.1 innings, including the postseason. His ERA and FIP, including the playoffs, were 2.96, and 3.31, respectively. Those are both very good numbers along with his 3.6 WAR from the regular season. Among pending free-agent pitchers, only Patrick Corbin had a better season — and Kershaw showed he could still get outs at a high rate with declining velocity.

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Xander Bogaerts triple-slashed .288/.360/.522 in 580 regular-season plate appearances in 2018, which translated to a 133 wRC+ and 4.9 WAR. Both figures represented career highs. Like his teammate Mookie Betts, Bogaerts thrived offensively while largely maintaining a disciplined approach at the plate. This year, the 25-year-old swung at 61% of pitches he saw in the strike zone and just 43% of pitches overall. Both figures sit below league norms (just 16 of 140 qualified hitters swung at pitches in the zone less often this year) and are broadly consistent with Bogaerts’scareer figures. Bogaerts can, clearly, be a successful major-league hitter without taking a cut at every tempting fastball and slider he sees in the zone. He’s done it in each of past four years.

He did not, however, do so during this World Series. The only ball he struck really well in all five games was a second-inning double against Hyun-Jin Ryu in Game Two; his only other hits were a soft line-drive single in the ninth inning of Game Four that appeared to be almost the accidental result of a swing on which Bogaerts rolled over badly, and a single in the seventh in the clincher. Everything else he produced during this World Series was, for the most part, a weak ground ball or, in one horrible sequence of the 18-inning marathon that was Game Three, a ground out to second, a ground out to the pitcher, a ground out to the catcher, a strikeout swinging, and a ground ball into a double play. Bogaerts seemed simply unable to get his timing right for any consistent length of time in this World Series. Nor, until the final game, did Mookie Betts or J.D. Martinez.

Although all three Boston stars struggled to a greater or lesser extent during this Fall Classic — a matter examined by Jeff Sullivan earlier today — I’d like to focus on Bogaerts for much of this piece because his struggles seem, at least to me, the most pronounced — and most out of line with his performance during the regular season in 2018 (and, one presumes, his forthcoming performance in 2019). The first ground out in that horrible five-PA sequence I mentioned above, against Kenley Jansen in the ninth inning of Game Three, is instructive for its demonstration of Bogaerts’ Series-long inability to time up usually hittable pitches. (Please note: I’m not saying I could do this. I would cry if someone threw something past me at even 85.) The first pitch of the sequence was a sinker at 95 that Bogaerts took as a strike on the lower inside corner of the plate. Here it is:

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In Game Five of the World Series on Sunday night, behind a stifling seven-inning, three-hit effort from David Price — on three days of rest, even — and a pair of home runs by Steve Pearce, the Red Sox completed their dismantling of the Dodgers with a 5-1 victory and a four-games-to-one Series win. Like the other games in the series, this one was close for a while. Ultimately, though, the Red Sox pulled away late, with the Dodgers unable to produce a run beyond David Freese’s leadoff homer in the bottom of the first inning. On top of their franchise-record 108 wins, the Red Sox went 11-3 in the postseason, losing just one game in each round of the playoffs. They’ll take their place among the most dominant championship teams of recent vintage, and have a claim as the best in franchise history.

To these eyes, the World Series turned on eight factors, areas that set the Red Sox apart from the Dodgers in what was, at times, a fairly close series that will nonetheless look rather lopsided in the history books.

Two-Out Damage

Continuing what they did against the Astros in the ALCS, the Red Sox scored the majority of their runs against the Dodgers with two outs. In fact, the totals and rates in the two rounds match up almost exactly: 18 out of 29 runs scored against Houston (62.0%) and 18 of 28 against Los Angeles (64.3%). In the World Series they hit .242/.347/.484 in 72 plate appearances with two outs and put up video-game numbers — .471/.609/.882 in 23 PA — with two outs and runners in scoring position. Their OPS in that latter situation set a World Series record:

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According to Joel Sherman and Mark Feinsand, the next general manager of the New York Mets will be agent Brodie Van Wagenen.

Van Wagenen, who unlike most sports agents is not an attorney, is part of the sports division of Creative Artists Agency, which represents athletes, actors, and other artists. Van Wagenen, it should be noted, is co-head of CAA Sports, the agency’s athletic representation arm. But Van Wagenen is more than just an ordinary baseball agent; he negotiated Robinson Cano‘s 10-year megadeal with the Seattle Mariners, Ryan Zimmerman’s nine-figure pact with Washington, and Yoenis Cespedes‘ current deal with the Mets. In other words, Van Wagenen represents some of the sport’s biggest stars.

There’s little doubt that Van Wagenen’s experience negotiating some of the sport’s largest contracts gives him a significant amount of experience that will serve him well in his new role. Van Wagenen has also garnered a reputation as one of the most player-friendly voices in the industry, which makes this move perhaps all the more surprising. For instance, during the famously slow 2017-18 offseason, he accused MLB owners of collusion and threatened that players would boycott spring training. He also has demanded trades for players who don’t receive contract extensions.

On the surface, it seems as though the addition of a player agent to a major-league front office could represent a boon for the union.

On the other hand, it isn’t Van Wagenen’s experience about which many in the industry are concerned.

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We talk all the time about whether or not the playoffs crown the best team in baseball. Is it more important to be the best team for six months, or is it more important to be the best team for one month? What are we even celebrating, anyway? When you look at the playoffs too hard, and when the playoffs tell a different story than the regular season, it can be difficult to know what to think. You can start to think about these things more than they were ever intended to be thought about. It’s deeply unfulfilling. I can speak from experience.

This year, we get a break. We get a break from having to overthink the tournament, and having to compare it against everything we saw before. The Red Sox won the World Series in five games over the Dodgers. The Red Sox had led all of baseball with 108 wins. In the first two playoff rounds, they eliminated the two other teams that reached triple digits. My favorite standings fact: For true talent, I prefer to look at run differential, or BaseRuns. The four best teams in the regular season were the Astros, Red Sox, Dodgers, and Yankees. The Red Sox knocked out the Yankees, the Astros, and the Dodgers, in order. They lost only one game in each round. Their playoff record was 11-3. Only three champions in the wild-card era have lost fewer games. The Red Sox did that against incredible competition.

All things considered, the Red Sox were the best team of 2018. They presented a lot of the evidence from March through September, and then in October, they made a convincing closing argument. It was what happened in October that turned this from a great team into maybe the greatest Red Sox team in history. By winning the championship, the Red Sox accomplished as much as they possibly could. And there’s something about the title run that’s striking to me. In terms of execution, the playoff Red Sox played almost flawless baseball. Yet they were largely carried by their supporting cast.

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Scott Radinsky came into coaching with an old-school approach. That was to be expected. His playing career spanned the 1986-2001 seasons, and he honed his craft under the likes of Moe Drabowsky, who came of age in the Eisenhower era. Analytics were in their infancy. Radinsky was hired by the Indians in 2005 — initially to tutor pitchers in the minors — on the strength of his nuts-and-bolts knowledge and his communication skills.

The 50-year-old went on to serve as Cleveland’s bullpen coach in 2010-2011, and then as their pitching coach in 2012. From there he moved on to the Dodgers organization, and he spent the last two years as the bullpen coach in Anaheim. Along the way, he’s learned to embrace analytics.

“The information wasn’t as eye-opening to me when I was first getting exposed to it,” admitted Radinsky, who now monitors TrackMan data throughout the season. “I wasn’t resistant; it just didn’t make complete sense to me. But over the years, because of how much better it’s being explained — and a lot of it seems more quantifiable — it makes perfect sense. I’ve completely bought in, which makes it easier for me to sell something to a player.”

Radinsky gave examples of that salesmanship — we’ll share specifics in the coming week — including convincing Blake Parker to up his breaking ball usage, and getting Justin Anderson to better utilize his fastball. In each case, the data provided by Anaheim’s analytics department was delivered to Radinsky in “an awesome” manner. Just as importantly, it didn’t arrive heavy-handed. Read the rest of this entry »

It might come as a surprise to some to learn that Major League Baseball used to be a tax-exempt non-profit. It’s true: Section 501(c)(6) of the Internal Revenue Code allows for professional sports leagues to claim tax-exempt status. That didn’t make the teams tax-exempt; the rule applied to sports’ central offices. It is an understandably controversial part of the tax code. Legislators have attempted to eliminate that tax-exempt status. MLB eventually voluntarily surrendered its non-profit status in 2007, mostly so it didn’t have to report its executive compensation.

MLB might not be a non-profit anymore, but that doesn’t mean it likes paying taxes. Its latest attempt to keep the IRS at bay concerns one of the unforeseen side effects of the new tax law, which we’ve talked about before. In this instance, MLB teams are upset about a deduction the IRS says they’re ineligible for. As the Wall Street Journal’s Richard Rubin explains,

Team owners are fighting a proposed tax regulation that would deny baseball teams and other sports franchises a lucrative deduction they say they scored in last year’s tax law.

Congress intended that teams get the “full deduction,” MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred wrote in an Oct. 1 letter to the Treasury Department and IRS, attempting to draw a “stark contrast” between baseball teams that he said should get the break and others, such as investment bankers, who can’t.

The tax break at issue is the 20% deduction for pass-through businesses such as partnerships and S corporations that pay their income taxes through their owners’ individual returns. Congress designed the break as a companion to the rate cut for corporations, but it imposed limits that the government is now directing at team owners.

For those of you who either don’t know or don’t want to know what that last paragraph means, let me explain. The tax reform bill allowed certain types of enterprises called “pass-through” businesses – where the business pays its taxes via their owners’ tax returns – to have a tax deduction. Since many MLB teams are partnerships or other kinds of pass-through entities, they want to have this deduction too.

Now here’s the problem:

Congress included “athletics” on the list of businesses that couldn’t benefit from the new 20% deduction. Such exclusions in the law were meant to prevent people from turning labor income into business income. In athletics, that was intended, at least, to prevent a player from routing his salary through a limited liability company to get the business break.

And that has led Commissioner Rob Manfred to – no joke –argue Major League Baseball is not an athletics business in a letter to the IRS. Manfred wrote that “the activities of a major league professional athlete make up a de minimis amount of the total activities of all employees of a professional sports franchise.” He goes on to argue:

A professional sports club does not merely employ professional athletes, but rather employs hundreds of additional individuals who are responsible for conducting activities related to stadium operations, marketing, team operations, broadcasting and media, retail store operations, community engagement, and general and administrative functions. In fact, the substantial majority of time spent by a club’s employees does not relate to playing in the sporting contests presented by the club.

To MLB, a baseball team is in the business of receiving athletic services, not providing them. “The services being performed in connection with a sports franchise are those performed by the players, who are employed by the club—and in that regard, the club is receiving services, not performing them.” In other words, MLB is attempting to position itself as a league of marketing companies, rather than a sporting enterprise. Says MLB: “[The IRS’ interpretation of the law] incorrectly assumes that a professional sports club is . . . in the field of athletics merely because it employs athletes.” The problem is that this proves a bit too much. As Rubin explains:

…even if the performance of athletic services is only a small part of what a baseball team does, the IRS rule says that a business that is more than 5% athletic services is a service business and can’t get the tax break.

And that’s kind of the problem. MLB is trying to say it isn’t in the principle business of athletics because it employs primarily non-athletes. But this sort of thinking strikes me as a bit absurd. In the law, we look to the plain language of words when trying to determine the intent of the legislature. One way to do that is looking at a dictionary.Merriam-Webster defines “athletics” as “exercises, sports, or games engaged in by athletes“; by the plain language of the statute, Major League Baseball qualifies. Why? Because it is a business enterprise engaged in the marketing, presentation, and production of athletic events. MLB’s argument would be a bit like saying that Metro Goldwyn Mayer isn’t a movie company because it receives acting services and merely distributes movies that contain them. As a practical matter, MLB is more than a mere intermediary; it employs the athletes, facilitates the games, and markets them. It has no other product.

The other, more notable problem with MLB’s letter is how it frames itself and its teams. Here, it cites from a press release during the passage of the tax reform law.

“The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act includes specific safeguards to prevent tax avoidance and help ensure taxpayers of all income levels play by the rules under this new fairer, simpler tax system. Our legislation will ensure this much-needed tax relief goes to the local job creators it’s designed to help by distinguishing between the individual wage income of NBA All-Star Stephen Curry and the pass-through business income of Steve’s Bike Shop.” (Ways and Means release, November 2, 2017).

The boldface and underline were placed there by MLB. Now, there is, of course, a legal distinction they’re trying to make: Steve’s Bike Shop is a pass-through entity, while Stephen Curry isn’t. And yes, there is a certain legal merit to that position – but I find that particular example to be pretty disingenuous. MLB is comparing itself and its teams to Steve’s Bike Shop and distancing itself from Stephen Curry, who is the example of someone so rich he shouldn’t receive a tax cut. But at the same time, Steve’s Bike Shop doesn’t employ Stephen Curry, while MLB teams employ professional athletes like Stephen Curry. MLB is a national enterprise and its teams are hardly a local bike shop; they are by no means a small business, nor are they a “Main Street” job creator. To use professional athletes as an example of people who do not need the deduction, whilst arguing that its billionaire owners do, smacks of bad faith, and is something the MLBPA should perhaps take notice of.

Finally, it’s worth noting that MLB isn’t alone here. Entertainment content writers are also lobbying the IRS using a similar argument. Both spend much of their submissions talking about the intent of Congress in passing the law. That makes sense: effectuating legislative intent is generally the goal of statutory interpretation. At the same time, however, it’s not clear that Congress had any intent on this issue.

Mark Prater, who was the lead Senate staff author of the provision, said he doesn’t recall explicit conversations about whether pro teams would qualify.

Oops.

It would take some doing to have a more difficult postseason on either side of the ball, particularly at a pivotal time in one’s career, than Yasmani Grandal has had. As the Dodgers’ starting catcher during the regular season, the switch-hitting 29-year-old (who turns 30 on November 8) hit for power, showed typically excellent plate discipline, and stood out as one of the game’s best pitch-framers. Alas, he’s looked hapless this month, and between some bad breaks defensively and a deepening offensive slump, he’s lost his starting job for the second straight postseason. As a pending free agent, he could be headed for a rough winter, though he should get at least another shot to help the Dodgers overcome their two-games-to-none deficit in the World Series.

In his seventh season in the majors and fourth with the Dodgers, Grandal hit a solid .241/.349/.466 with 24 homers for a 125 wRC+. The last mark was the best of his career as a regular (he posted a 144 wRC+ in 226 PA as a rookie in 2012) and one point shy of the Marlins’ J.T. Realmuto, who was the the majors’ best among catchers. Admittedly, his season was streaky. Here’s how it looked by month, straight from our splits:

Holy fluctuating BABIPs! I haven’t shown his ISOs (SLG – AVG), but you can do the mental math; he swung from two straight months in the .160s to a July with a .364 ISO. About the only thing he did with consistency was knock the ball out of the park. He even had a month (June) where he drew just four walks. On a rolling average basis, however, Grandal wasn’t much streaker than he’d been in 2017, when he hit .247/.308/.459 for a more modest 102 wRC+. Here are his last three seasons by 15-game rolling wOBA (15-game Rolling wOBA is also the name of my new band):

 
That’s a bit of a rollercoaster ride, but not one that’s especially more dramatic than that of the similarly offensively productive Realmuto, who had a 107 wRC+ in 2017 and a 111 mark (to Grandal’s 116) in 2016:

 
Realmuto had just one calendar month in 2018 with a wRC+ lower than 100 (79 in August), but he also had a drastic first half/second half split (147 before the All-Star break, 99 after) whereas Grandal was somehow Mr. Consistency in that regard (124 and 126). Go figure.

By our version of catcher defense, which does not include pitch framing, Grandal was nine runs above average en route to 3.6 WAR, second among all catchers behind Realmuto’s 4.8. By Defensive Runs Saved, he ranked ninth out of 47 qualifiers with nine runs above average, including 10 above average in terms of framing (rSZ). By Baseball Prospectus’ numbers, he was an MLB-high 15.7 above average in framing and 17.7 runs above average overall, second to Jeff Mathis‘ 18.2. By BP’s other components of catcher defense, he was 0.8 runs above average in pitch blocking (preventing passed balls and wild pitches), ranking 22nd out of 82 catchers with at least 1,000 framing chances. (For reference, the top-to-bottom spread there was just 8.2 runs.) He was 0.1 runs above average in terms of throwing out baserunners, which either ranked 30th (as displayed on the page) or was in a 21-way virtual tie for 15th (there’s no second decimal place shown) in a category where the top-to-bottom spread is all of 1.9 runs.

By BP’s numbers, Grandal’s 2018 defense was his worst season out of his past four in total but just the second in that span in which he was average or better in framing, blocking, and throwing in the same season:

In other words, there were no particular red flags about his defense heading into the postseason. And yet in the small-sample spotlight, he had a nightmarish NLCS against the Brewers, after a relatively quiet Division Series in which he caught every inning against the Braves without either a wild pitch or a passed ball, and threw out the only stolen base attempt against him.

Grandal’s troubles began in the first inning of Game 1 of the NLCS, with Clayton Kershaw on the mound. With Lorenzo Cain on first, he lost a low slider to Christian Yelich:

The ball didn’t get far but it was enough to advance Cain, whom Kershaw eventually stranded. Two innings later, with one out, men on first and second and Jesus Aguilar at the plate, another Kershaw slider squirted past him, with both runners advancing.

Two pitches later, Aguilar hit a screaming liner that first baseman David Freese dove and caught, but home plate umpire Scott Barry ruled that Grandal had interfered with his swing, and Freese was awarded first base. Cain then scored on an Hernan Perez fly ball, which would have been an inning-ender had Aguilar’s lineout been allowed to stand; the throw home from center fielder Cody Bellinger clanked off Grandal’s glove, allowing both runners to advance and costing the catcher his second error of the inning (the catcher’s interference having been the first).

Thus Grandal became the first catcher in postseason history to complete the trifecta of an error, an interference, and a passed ball in a single inning. Though Kershaw limited the damage in those two innings to a pair of runs, they loomed large in what became a 6-5 loss.

Backup Austin Barnes caught Game 2, but Grandal returned to catch Walker Buehler in Game 3. With the Dodgers trailing 1-0 and Travis Shaw having smacked a two-out triple, the 24-year-old righty bounced a knuckle curve on the plate that Grandal couldn’t come up with, as Shaw scored.

With one out in the eighth, and Shaw facing Alex Wood with Ryan Braun on first base, Grandal simply failed to catch a 91.9 mph fastball that missed its mark; Braun advanced but did not score.

Grandal has caught just eight innings since; two apiece in NLCS Games 4 and 6, with the balance coming in the two World Series games after entering as a pinch-hitter. In that limited time, he’s been party to another couple of wild pitches. In the seventh inning of Game 6, he caught Kenta Maeda with the Dodgers down 5-2. When the Brewers put runners on second and third with two outs, the lead became 6-2 after Maeda bounced a slider near the front left-hand corner of the plate that ricocheted away from Grandal. Aguilar scored and Mike Moustakas took third. In Game 2 of the World Series, with the Dodgers down 4-2, Grandal blocked a Scott Alexander slider in the right-hand batter’s box; Mookie Betts, who was on second, sped to third but didn’t score.

All told, that’s three passed balls, three wild pitches, a catcher’s interference and an error catching a throw on Grandal’s watch. By the Win Probability Added calculations in our play logs, the eight plays add up to -0.245 WPA for the Dodgers’. About half of that came on wild pitches (0.107 on Shaw scoring, 0.026 on Aguilar scoring, 0.003 on Betts advancing) — plays where that the official scorer judged Grandal not to be the primary culprit — but that’s still gonna leave a mark.

Meanwhile, Grandal has hit .120/.241/.280 in 29 plate appearances, with four walks and 12 strikeouts; two of his three hits have gone for extra bases. After striking out three times in four PAs in Game 1 of the NLDS, he homered off Anibal Sanchez in Game 2, walked three times in four plate appearances in Game 3 (he was batting eighth) and went 0-for-5 with two strikeouts in Game 4. He went 1-for-4 with two strikeouts in Game 1 of the NLCS, his defensive game from hell, grounded into a bases-loaded double play as a pinch-hitter in Game 2, and went 1-for-4 with a fifth-inning double (off Jhoulys Chacin) and three strikeouts in Game 3, the last with one out and the bases loaded in the ninth. In his four subsequent pinch-hitting appearances, he’s 0-for-3 with a walk, which was drawn off Ryan Brasier to load the bases in the seventh inning of Game 1 of the World Series.

All told, Grandal has the sixth-lowest WPA of the postseason from an offensive standpoint, though he doesn’t even have the lowest mark on his team:

Meanwhile, Barnes is just 2-for-22 with -0.121 WPA int he postseason, that after hitting a disappointing .205/.329/.290 (77 wRC+) in 238 PA, down from .289/.408/.486 (142 wRC+) lasts year. A good framer (8.3 runs above average) and blocker (1.0 runs) but subpar thrower (-0.2 runs) according to BP’s metrics, he’s thrown out two out of five runners attempting to steal, but was unable to stop the changeup that Ryan Madson bounced in front of the plate on his first pitch upon entering the World Series opener, with both runners advancing and later scoring.

Grandal started 110 games behind the plate in 2018 and 113 in 2017, but this is the second straight October that he’s taken a back seat in the postseason. Last year, he went into a tailspin over the final two months of the season while understandably distracted by his wife’s high-risk pregnancy that culminated with the birth of his son on the eve of the World Series; Grandal traveled back and forth to his wife in Arizona on off days, sometimes making five-hour drives on back-to-back days. He started just twice in the postseason, going 0-for-8 with three walks while Barnes made 13 starts and hit .217/.288/.326 in 52 PA. Grandal now owns a dismal .099/.256/.197 line in 87 postseason plate appearances, all with the Dodgers. Among players with at least 75 postseason PA since 1969, only one has a lower batting average (Dan Wilson at .091) and only two have a lower slugging percentage (Wilson at .102 and Mike Bordick at .174).

As reported by the Orange County Register’s Bill Plunkett, Grandal credited the Brewers for holding him in check but blamed himself for “a horrendous job by continuing to not make an adjustment” at the plate. As for the defense, he struggled to accept the notion that he’s in some kind of slump:

“How much control do I have on a ball that hits the dirt? That’s the best way I can put it. … How many guys did I throw out during the two series? If you’re strictly basing a defensive slump off of three blocks that could have gone either way, three blocks that I talked to three, four other catchers about and they’ve all told me the same thing – if you go off of those three, then I guess you can say I’m in a slump.”

The catcher did say that after reviewing video of Game 1, he was too “flat-footed” in his setup, which affected his positioning in blocking a ball, but that he had fixed that issue. In his view, the bounces just haven’t gone his way:

“You’ve got one of the best defensive catchers in the game in [Gold Glove winner] Martin Maldonado and he’s blocking balls where they hit him dead on, the way it should be hitting, and the balls going other places. You’ve got [Brewers catcher] Erik Kratz, same thing in L.A. Ball hits him perfectly and it goes somewhere else. There’s nothing you can control as soon as that ball hits the dirt.”

Before Game 1 of the World Series, manager Dave Roberts said he anticipated starting Grandal at some point and was looking for the right matchup. With Barnes not hitting and with righty Rick Porcello on the mound, Game 3 would be a good spot. Grandal has been considerably stronger while batting from the left side of the plate, with a 120 wRC+ over the past three seasons and a 131 mark this year; he’s at 103 for 2016-2018 and 106 for this year from the right side. Via Statcast, he had a .447 wOBA against fastballs from righties this year, .365 for those 95 mph or faster (relevant for a potential Nathan Eovaldi start in Game 4).

As to what lies beyond this World Series, the assumption is that Grandal won’t be back in L.A., given that the Dodgers have, according to our own Kiley McDaniel, “two of the top three catching prospects in the game waiting in the upper levels” in Keibert Ruiz and Will Smith. They may need a stopgap to pair with Barnes in 2019, but don’t seem likely to make a multiyear commitment to Grandal, who will share top billing among the free agent catchers with Wilson Ramos.

Ramos has been slightly better hitter over the past three seasons (120 wRC+ to Grandal’s 116), albeit in about 300 fewer PA, but not nearly in Grandal’s class as a defender (79 runs above average to 6 via BP’s metrics, 39 to -11 via DRS). While the industry consensus is that Grandal may have cost himself money with his play this October, he’s 15 months younger and more durable than Ramos. He’s averaged 128 games per year to Ramos’ 104 over the past five seasons, and has had one knee surgery (2013) to Ramos’ two (2012 and 2016) — though he did also have A/C joint surgery in 2015.

We’ll have more to say on those two free agents — and all the others — after the World Series, of course. For now, we’ll see if Grandal can do anything to reverse the course of a very rough October.