Beyond offering the rare clash between number one seeds, this year’s World Series matchup between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the New York Yankees is steeped in baseball history and — as anyone who’s read me over the past two and a half decades knows — is of great personal resonance. The last time the two teams met in the Fall Classic, in 1981, I was an 11-year-old baseball nut hoping his favorite team could avenge its back-to-back World Series losses from ’77 and ’78. I could never have imagined that I’d get to cover their next October matchup. For most of the country, this pairing’s biggest selling point beyond the top-seed aspect and the involvement of the sport’s two most storied franchises is the presence of the game’s two biggest stars. Both the Dodgers’ Shohei Ohtani and the Yankees’ Aaron Judge are coming off historic seasons that will likely net them MVP awards, though things haven’t come quite so easily for either of them in the postseason.

We won’t officially know until November whether Judge and Ohtani both won the awards, but even working from the assumption that they will, this is hardly the first time that two likely MVPs have squared off in the World Series. In fact, it’s happened 25 times since 1931, with four such pairings from among the 11 times the Yankees and Dodgers have met. That said, it’s just the second such meeting since the start of the Wild Card era (1995 onward) and the sixth since the start of the Division era (1969 onward). MVP choices may be driven less by team success these days, but even when they are, the expanded playoff field makes getting to the World Series much harder:

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Sunday night’s NLCS Game 6 offered quite a contrast in its starting pitcher matchup. With a chance to push the series to a decisive Game 7, the Mets started Sean Manaea, a 32-year-old lefty who made a full complement of 32 starts during the regular season, set a career high for innings pitched (181 2/3), and had already made three strong postseason starts, allowing five runs across 17 innings. On the other side, with an opportunity to close out the series and claim their fourth pennant in eight seasons, the Dodgers tabbed Michael Kopech, a 28-year-old righty who started 27 games last year but hadn’t done so once this year, instead pitching out of the bullpen 67 times in the regular season and four more in the playoffs. The unorthodox choice owed to the Dodgers’ injury-wracked rotation. Los Angeles has barely been able to muster three workable starters for October, let alone four, and so manager Dave Roberts has resorted to sprinkling in bullpen games, with mixed results.

The ballgame turned out to be a mismatch, but not in the way you might have imagined. Kopech struggled with his control, throwing just 12 strikes out of his 25 pitches, walking two, and allowing one hit and one run. If he set a tone for the rest of the Dodgers staff, it was that this was going to be a grind, the outcome hinging on their ability to navigate out of traffic — which they did, stranding 13 runners while yielding “only” five runs. Meanwhile Manaea, who had limited the Dodgers to two hits and two earned runs over five innings in NLCS Game 2, lasted just two-plus innings and was battered for six hits while walking two. He was charged with five runs, four of which came off the bat of Tommy Edman in the form of a two-run double in the first inning and a two-run homer in the third.

The Dodgers weren’t expecting Kopech to go any deeper, leaving Roberts to follow a script that allowed him to utilize his remaining relievers to best effect (such as it was). The Mets harbored hopes that Manaea could at least pitch into the middle innings so that manager Carlos Mendoza could avoid deploying some of their lesser relievers, but the starter faltered so early that they didn’t have that luxury. As it was, the fifth run charged to Manaea scored when Phil Maton, already carrying an 8.44 ERA this October, was summoned with no outs in the third and didn’t escape before serving up a two-run homer to Will Smith. Faced with a 6-1 deficit, the Mets refused to go quietly, but went down just the same in a 10-5 loss that included 14 pitchers combining to allow 22 hits and 12 walks. It was excruciating viewing, and with a pennant on the line, one couldn’t help but wish instead for starters battling deep into the game. Alas, this was hardly atypical October baseball. Read the rest of this entry »

LOS ANGELES — The killer feature of a pitcher like Sean Manaea, circa October 2024, is the capacity to deceive. As has been documented at length, Manaea changed his arm angle midseason, dropping down from 28 degrees in April to 15 degrees by September. That move paid immediate dividends; Manaea dominated for the New York Mets down the stretch and excelled in the postseason. Because Manaea now throws from an arm angle so low to the ground, his high fastballs come in at an extremely flat vertical approach angle. A flat VAA distorts the hitter’s perception, creating the illusion of “rise.”

Squaring up a high fastball thrown from that angle with a flat swing requires incredible precision. If the bat is a few millimeters high, the hitter will drive the ball into the ground; a few millimeters low, and you’ve got a harmless popup.

No matter for Tommy Edman. In the third inning of Game 6 of the National League Championship Series, Manaea whipped a four-seamer with a -3.78 degree VAA to the tippy top of the zone; Edman ripped it into the left field bleachers for a two-run home run, effectively knocking Manaea out of the game. Edman racked up four RBI on Sunday, powering the Los Angeles Dodgers to a 10-5 victory and sending them to face the New York Yankees in the World Series.

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NEW YORK — Less than 20 minutes before what might have been the final game of the year at Citi Field, the OMG Mets introduced one more good-vibes gimmick. Five, actually.

The Temptations, the legendary Motown band, took the field behind home plate dressed in their signature suits and sang the National Anthem. Moments later, the quintet donned Mets jerseys and performed “My Girl,” their classic song that is played here whenever Francisco Lindor steps to the plate. If the Mets were going to be eliminated in Game 5 of the National League Championship Series, at least they’d go down singing.

Turns out, the Temptations were just the opening act for a three-hour rock revival. When it was over, the Mets had blown out the Dodgers, 12-6, and ensured that their remarkable run would continue for at least another game.

“We’ve played with our backs against the wall the whole year, and we’ve been able to rise to the occasion,” left fielder Brandon Nimmo said. “Some might say we’re at our best at that time. If anybody can do it, we can do it.” Read the rest of this entry »

NEW YORK — Though he wasn’t the offensive star of Game 3 of the National League Championship Series — he didn’t hit a moonshot into the second deck like Shohei Ohtani or Max Muncy — Will Smith did collect two hits in the Dodgers’ 8-0 victory over the Mets. They weren’t exactly scorchers, but one was of critical importance, as it drove in the game’s first run. Remarkably, Smith’s performance was just the second time this postseason that a catcher has collected multiple hits in a game, and for as much as Smith has struggled, his numbers still stand out relative to the competition. It’s been an exceptionally difficult October for the men wearing the tools of ignorance.

These days, those tools actually suggest anything but ignorance. Armed with more data than ever, and playing in a pressure-cooker atmosphere where a single pitch can turn a series, Smith and those of his peers who are still standing (or squatting) in October — namely the Yankees’ Austin Wells, the Mets’ Francisco Alvarez, and the Guardians’ tandem of Bo Naylor and Austin Hedges — might be required to navigate a short-working starter and half a dozen relievers through opposing lineups, controlling the tempo of the game when things threaten to spiral out of control, and shaking off untold aches and pains. Hitting? That’s part of the job, but this fall, these catchers’ offensive contributions have felt particularly secondary, not unlike those of pitchers swinging the bat in the days before the universal designated hitter.

The numbers certainly look like those bygone pitchers hacking away. Thus far, the catchers for the 12 postseason teams have collectively hit .169/.236/.255 (40 wRC+) with five homers and a 28.3% strikeout rate through 254 plate appearances. In other words, they’ve been outhit by Madison Bumgarner (.172/.232/.292, 44 wRC+ career). Read the rest of this entry »

In baseball history, there have been 15 players signed to contracts worth a total of $300 million or more. The Dodgers started three of those 15 players on Thursday night — Shohei Ohtani, Mookie Betts, and Yoshinobu Yamamoto. That’s a ridiculous amount of money, especially for such a trivial enterprise as baseball. When a team — even a team as well-resourced as the Dodgers — spends that much money on a trio of players, it means they really want to win.

Well, the syndicate of investors at Guggenheim Baseball Management got their money’s worth on Thursday. Ohtani homered to lead off the game and added three walks, scoring four runs in total. Betts went 4-for-6 with three runs and a homer of his own, which took the Dodgers’ lead from tenuous to comfortable in the sixth. And Yamamoto struck out eight batters in 4 1/3 innings as the Dodgers won 10-2. The World Series is now just one win away. Read the rest of this entry »

Shohei Ohtani doesn’t have a hit with the bases empty. I kept hearing that throughout FS1’s broadcast of Game 3 of the NLCS. My first thought was, “Wow, I’m old enough to remember when they dogged star players for not hitting well enough with runners on base! I guess some people will find any reason to complain!”

My second thought was, “Huh, I thought Ohtani was having a decent postseason.” It could be better, of course. Ohtani is hitting .226/.351/.419, which I suppose is disappointing from a player with a legitimate case for being the greatest of all time. But if you told most managers that their leadoff hitter would post a .351 OBP through the first eight games of the playoffs, most of them would take it. Out of 58 players with 20 or more plate appearances this postseason, Ohtani is 18th in wRC+ and 11th in WPA. By any objective standard, Ohtani’s been perfectly adequate at the plate overall. Read the rest of this entry »

Once considered the natural successor to Clayton Kershaw as The Man in the Dodgers’ rotation, Walker Buehler’s career hit a rocky stretch in 2022. Coming off arguably his best season in the majors, Buehler was pulled from a June start with elbow pain, starting a journey that ended with a Tommy John surgery, the second of his career, two months later. After some unrelated injury setbacks this spring, Buehler returned to the Dodgers, but as a shadow of his former self. He finished 2024 with a 5.38 ERA and a 5.54 FIP, and might not have even made the postseason roster if not for the fact that most of the organization’s other plausible starters don’t currently have working throwing arms. His no-strikeout, six-run outing against the Padres in Game 3 of the NLDS wasn’t an inspiring sign that he’d turn things around in the playoffs.

And yet, in Game 3 of the NLCS against the Mets at Citi Field, Buehler had opposing batters flailing at his shockingly nasty repertoire in a short but effective four-inning start. He left with a two-run lead, but after the Los Angeles offense kept tacking on and the bullpen threw five scoreless innings, the Dodgers left the ballpark Wednesday night with an 8-0 win and a 2-1 advantage in the best-of-seven series.

One of the problems with Buehler in his return this year was that he was just so darn hittable at times. Before 2022, his four-seamer was the foundation that his out-pitches were built around, but even before his elbow surgery, the effectiveness of the pitch had practically disappeared. From 2021 to 2022, he bled about 200 rpm off his fastball’s average spin rate. Batters apparently took notice, suddenly slugging .618 as his heater lost some of its rise. Buehler returned from surgery, but the four-seamer’s effectiveness did not, and the pitch became a smaller part of his toolset. Read the rest of this entry »

This past Saturday, the Arizona Fall League played host to a tripleheader, with start times staggered enough to see at least most of all three contests at the various ballparks in the eastern part of the Phoenix metro area. My notes and thoughts on the standouts from that day, as well as Monday’s solo game in Peoria, are below. You can find the end-of-year reports and grades on the 2024 Fall Leaguers on the Fall League tab of The Board. Read the rest of this entry »

LOS ANGELES — In early May, Ben Casparius struck out seven Springfield Cardinals over 5.1 scoreless innings, leading the Double-A Tulsa Drillers to a dominant 11-0 victory. Five months later, he was ripping filthy sliders to close out Game 1 of the NLCS for one of the richest teams in the sport.

This is life in the Dodgers bullpen at the moment. After a cursed season for injuries, one where they’ve deployed Plans A, B, C, and D, their Plan E involves a trio of talented-but-unproven arms picking up more innings than Dodgers manager Dave Roberts would like. At points, it has worked out incredibly well — the Dodgers ripped off 33 consecutive scoreless innings between the end of the NLDS and the start of the NLCS, tying a postseason record. But yesterday’s Game 2 revealed the downside of relying on Evan Phillips, Blake Treinen, Michael Kopech, and a bevy of backup options. The designed bullpen game went off the rails early, as the Mets put up six runs in the first two innings and cruised for the remainder of the contest.

Out of necessity, the Dodgers have thrust pitchers like Casparius into the spotlight. According to RosterResource, the Dodgers currently have seven starting pitchers on the injured list, including Tyler Glasnow, Clayton Kershaw, and Dustin May. That list does not include Bobby Miller, who was slated to be a big part of the rotation in April but was demoted to Oklahoma City in September after struggling with various maladies all year. It doesn’t include Shohei Ohtani, who is still rehabbing from elbow surgery. And it doesn’t include Alex Vesia, Michael Grove, Joe Kelly, or Brusdar Graterol, all off the postseason roster due to injuries suffered in the last few weeks. Read the rest of this entry »