With one swing of his bat on a hanging slider from Aroldis Chapman, José Altuve untied Game 6 of the ALCS and sent the Astros to their second World Series in three years. In doing so, he joined some select company, becoming the fifth player in 50 years worth of League Championship Series to hit a pennant-winning walk-off home run, after current Yankees manager Aaron Boone (2003 against the Red Sox) as well as the Yankees’ Chris Chambliss (1976 against the Royals), the Tigers’ Magglio Ordonez (2006 against the A’s), and the Giants’ Travis Ishikawa (2014 against the Cardinals).

Altuve’s shot had an air of inevitability about it. While he has been surpassed by Alex Bregman as the team’s top position player — the two-year WAR totals for the pair are 16.1 for Bregman, 8.4 for Altuve — even at just 29 years old, he’s become something an elder statesman as well as a leader. He’s the longest-tenured Astro, having debuted in 2011, when the team was still in the National League and before Jeff Luhnow was general manager. His first three seasons featured a combined total of 324 losses, and while he was spared the first half of 2011 (he debuted on July 20), that’s a lot of losing for one person to endure, regardless of how one feels about the team’s choice of rebuilding strategies. Now he’s been part of teams that have won a combined total of 311 games over the past three years. Read the rest of this entry »

After what was otherwise a fairly quiet affair punctuated by the occasional home run, the Houston Astros won Game 6 of the American League Championship Series 6-4 on a walkoff home run from José Altuve. Houston takes the series four games to two, and avoids a high-stakes Game 7 that would have left Gerrit Cole unavailable in the World Series until the third game.

The evening got off to an inauspicious start for the Yankees as Houston’s first entrant in the bullpen battle, Brad Peacock, quickly dispatched DJ LeMahieu, Aaron Judge, and Gleyber Torres with seven pitches. Chad Green opened for New York and didn’t perform as well in his half of the inning as Peacock did in his. Green was perhaps fortunate to escape a rather pedestrian slider to Altuve with only a double, but he was less lucky with a high, very inside fastball to Yuli Gurriel, which the first baseman turned on for a home run to give the Astros an early 3-0 lead. That high, inside fastball isn’t usually that dangerous for a pitcher; there were only 13 home runs hit this year by right-handed hitters swinging at a four-seamer in Statcast’s inside and high-inside “chase” zones. Coincidentally enough, Gurriel had one of those home runs, comfortably turning on a sorta-fastball from Trevor Williams. This might have been one of the highest-leverage of those since Kit Keller’s.

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Yordan Alvarez is the favorite to win the AL Rookie of the Year Award. He completely demolished opposing pitching this year, first in Triple-A (170 wRC+), then in the majors (178 wRC+) after being called up in early June. Between the two levels, he launched 50 home runs while showing elite plate discipline. But this October, he’s been a non-factor for the Astros.

He showed some life against the Rays, going 6-for-19 with three doubles in that five game series. But against the Yankees, he’s been completely shut down. He collected his first hit of the Championship Series last night, a broken bat single off Chad Green. He’s reached base just three other times against Yankees pitching, drawing two walks and reaching on an error. Overall, he’s slashing just .206/.270/.294 in nine postseason games.

What’s even more concerning is his elevated strikeout rate. He struck out just over a quarter of the time he came to the plate during the regular season. That’s jumped up to 37.8% in the postseason. During the regular season, Alvarez never had a nine-game stretch as poor as this one.

There was a nine-game stretch ending on September 6 during which he posted a strikeout rate of 36.6%. But he also launched three home runs over that span, something he hasn’t been able to do during the postseason. Obviously small sample caveats apply here, but it appears as though both the Rays and the Yankees have found similar approaches to neutralizing the 22-year-old rookie. Read the rest of this entry »

Last offseason, the Yankees gave Adam Ottavino a three-year, $27 million contract, a move that added yet another high octane arm to their already-loaded bullpen. And unlike some reliever contracts, it has worked out quite well thus far.

Ottavino had a solid first year in New York. His 1.90 ERA was a career-best, as was his 2.5 RA9-WAR. His 3.44 FIP (74 FIP-) and 4.32 xFIP (94 xFIP-) suggested that he was probably quite a bit worse than his ERA indicated, due to a year-over-year strikeout rate that fell from 36% to 31% and a walk rate that ballooned from 12% to 14%. So, yes, Ottavino wasn’t nearly as dominant in 2019 as he was the year before, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t useful in the Big Apple. His 1.3 WAR ranked 22nd among all relievers and second on the team.

We could dig deeper into Ottavino’s 2019 campaign if we so desired, but that’s not why he’s relevant right now. The 66 and third innings he pitched during the regular season were important, but they are not nearly as meaningful as the two and one-third innings he’s pitched so far this postseason. Ottavino has faced just 18 hitters this October, but the Yankees have already been ridiculed for “making a big mistake” in sticking with him.

Perhaps this is a fair argument; Ottavino’s October results certainly reflect the rationale behind the criticism. Of the 18 batters he has faced, seven of them have recorded hits, three more have walked, and just seven have made outs. The slash line against Ottavino is ugly: .467/.556/.800.

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If Masahiro Tanaka has a signature pitch, it’s his slider. When he first came over from Japan in 2014, nearly half of his strikeouts came on the splitter despite throwing it only a quarter of the time. In his first three seasons in the majors, Tanaka threw his splitter more often than any other pitch and batters put up a feeble 37 wRC+ against it, while whiffing on the pitch 19% of the time. But in 2017, Tanaka used his slider more often than the splitter. In 2018, that trend continued; he got better results from his slider than he did with the splitter. This season the disparity in usage and effectiveness grew. Tanaka struggled with his splitter due to changes in the baseball, but even after re-configuring the splitter in July, his slider has remained his best pitch.

Against the Astros in Game 1 of the ALCS, Tanaka got eight swings and misses. Every single whiff came on the slider. Here’s how Tanaka’s usage of his slider has compared to that of his splitter this season:

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In 2017, The Ringer called Anthony Rendon baseball’s “unknown superstar.” A year later, at the conclusion of the 2018 season, Beyond the Box Score described Rendon as “constantly overlooked.” I’m pretty sure there’s a law somewhere that says that when you write about Rendon, you have to describe him using the word “underrated” or one like it. But rules were made to be broken, and this one has run its course. Rendon is too good to be underrated any more. He has a strong case as being the best third baseman in baseball — which is an incredibly deep field — and an even better case as one of the top 10 players in the game overall.

Let’s start with the top-line figures and then get into the mechanics. Here are baseball’s WAR leaders since 2013, when Rendon made his debut for the Nationals:

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There was only a moment during Game 4 of the NLCS on Tuesday when it felt as though whatever weird hex had enveloped the last seven years of Washington Nationals baseball might be ready to rear its ugly head once more. It was in the top of the eighth inning, when the St. Louis Cardinals loaded the bases with two outs and a three-run deficit. Washington had once led 7-0, but a rally by the Cardinals in the middle innings more than halved that advantage, and now, they actually had the tying run on base. It was on this same field, seven years ago, that the Cardinals had erased a 6-0 deficit to win a do-or-die Game 5 in the NLDS, and it was on this same field that the Nationals’ bullpen had let so many games slip away over the years. For a minute, one could see the narrative beginning to snap back into place. But then, Daniel Hudson forced Matt Carpenter to roll over on a groundball to second base, and Washington inched closer to one of the most dominant series victories in recent memory.

The Nationals defeated St. Louis by a score of 7-4 on Tuesday, completing a four-game sweep that secured the first pennant in franchise history. They outscored the Cardinals 20-6 in the series, with their pitchers yielding just five earned runs, seven walks, and one home run while striking out 48 in 36 innings. That works out to a 1.25 ERA, 12 K/9, 1.75 BB/9, and 0.25 HR/9 in the four biggest games of their season. It was the first NLCS sweep since the Mets defeated the Cubs in 2015, and just the third NLCS sweep of the last 24 years.

Patrick Corbin was the latest Washington starting pitcher to baffle Cardinals hitters. He struck out the side in the first inning, and went on to fan seven of the first nine batters he faced and a total of 12 in just five innings of work. He also allowed three walks, along with four runs on four hits. Corbin got swings and misses on 24 of the 94 pitches he threw, giving him a whiff rate of 25.5% that stands as the highest he’s ever registered in a start in his career according to Baseball Savant. Of those 24 whiffs, 16 came against his slider, which he threw a total of 42 times. Just one of those sliders was put into play by a Cardinals batter. Read the rest of this entry »

With the Cardinals’ offense held to two runs across the first three games of the NLCS against the Nationals, the team has dug themselves a hole. The odds of the Cardinals winning four straight games aren’t high; our standard odds give the Cardinals a 3.1% chance at taking the series with ZiPS’ method going a bit higher at 4.9%. Winning four games in a row against a good opponent isn’t impossible. Just a few weeks ago the Cardinals pulled off a four-game sweep to solidify their playoff position. Back in April, the team completed a four-game sweep of the Dodgers and later that month, they won the first three of a four-game set against the Nationals. If Cardinals were to do the same now, they would force a Game 7. But that St. Louis has done something similar doesn’t change the current situation, which is dire, and the team isn’t helped by the fact that they have to turn to their fourth-best pitcher tonight when a loss ends the season.

Tonight’s start isn’t Dakota Hudson’s first with the Cardinals facing elimination. Just a week ago, he took the mound with St. Louis down two games to one against Atlanta. Hudson lasted four and two-thirds innings and gave up four runs, though three of those runs were the product of poor defensive play. The Cardinals eventually rallied to win that game in 10 innings and then blew the Braves out in Atlanta to advance to the NLCS. Hudson’s performance in that start was fairly typical for him, with a low number of strikeouts, a couple of walks, and what would have been a low run total if the normally stout Cardinals defense had supported him.

Tonight’s game isn’t likely to turn on the performance Hudson provides, given the offensive offensive performances by St. Louis so far, but if the Cardinals are going to extend the series, it’s important that their starter keep them in the game. Hudson’s profile is unique and he’s been a near-perfect fit for the Cardinals this season. Looking at various WAR metrics, his 1.0 WAR indicates mediocrity. If we were to use WAR based on his .335 xwOBA, we’d see a similar result. Over at Baseball-Reference, he’s put up a 2.2 WAR, a roughly average pitcher. Baseball Prospectus sees a similar 2.4 figure.

Where Hudson separates himself from that mediocrity is in our RA9-WAR, where he has put up a 3.4 mark this season, which ranks 18th in the National League. Given what all the other WAR metrics say about Hudson, along with his low strikeout totals and high walk rate, it’s not a stretch to say that his 3.4 RA9-WAR inflates his talents a bit. However, it also wouldn’t be a stretch to say that Hudson combined with the Cardinals defense is one of the 20-best pitchers in the NL. Hudson couldn’t move to Queens with the Mets infield defense and be that pitcher, but with Kolten Wong, Paul DeJong, Paul Goldschmidt and Tommy Edman (or Matt Carpenter), he gets the results of a good pitcher. Hudson has one elite skill, and he and the Cardinals combine to get outs at a very high rate. Read the rest of this entry »

No pitcher has ever been in quite the position that Gerrit Cole is. The 29-year-old righty with the triple-digit heat has yet to win or even reach the World Series, but his Astros are still favored to beat the Yankees in the ALCS, and he’ll have more than a little influence over that outcome, beginning with Tuesday afternoon’s Game 3 start. Meanwhile, though he has yet to win the AL Cy Young award, after a season in which his 326 strikeouts, 2.50 ERA, 2.64 FIP and 7.4 fWAR all led the the American league, Cole is at the very least a co-favorite alongside teammate Justin Verlander. Before we know the answer to whether he’ll claim the latter piece of hardware, he will reach free agency, putting him in position to ink the largest deal ever for a pitcher.

That could make for an impressive trifecta, and one whose only precedent comes with an asterisk. In December 1974, at the end of a season in which he helped the A’s to their third straight championship and claimed the AL Cy Young award on the basis of a 25-12 won-loss record with a 2.49 ERA, Catfish Hunter had his two-year, $200,000 contract with Oakland voided by a three-person arbitration panel after owner Charlie Finley failed to make deferred annuity payments in a timely fashion as stipulated by the deal. Every team except the Giants attempted to woo the sudden free agent, who on December 31, signed a record-setting five-year, $3.2 million deal with the Yankees. A year later, that same panel, comprised of MLB Player Relations Committee chief negotiator John Gaherin, MLBPA Executive Director Marvin Miller, and impartial chairman Peter Seitz, would rule in favor of pitchers Andy Messersmith and Dave McNally, nullifying the reserve clause and creating free agency as we know it.

Since then, only four hurlers have had their Cy Young awards line up with free agency:

• Rick Sutcliffe, following a 1984 season in which he went 16-1 after a trade from the Indians, helping the Cubs to their first postseason berth since 1945. He re-signed with the Cubs via a five-year, $9.5 million contract that briefly made him the game’s highest-paid pitcher, and went on to make a pair of All-Star teams during the deal, first in 1987, when he placed second in the NL Cy Young race, and again in 1989, when he helped the Cubs win another NL East title.
• Mark Davis, following a 1989 season in which his he posted a 1.85 ERA and an NL-best 44 saves for the Padres. He signed a four-year, $13 million deal with the Royals, but quickly descended into replacement-level territory.
• Greg Maddux, following a 1992 season in which he went 20-11 with a 2.18 ERA for the Cubs. Rejecting an offer from the Yankees that was reportedly worth $6 million more, he instead accepted a five-year, $28 million deal to join Tom Glavine and John Smoltz with the Braves. He won the next three Cy Youngs as well, while helping Atlanta to a 1995 championship plus pennants in ’96 and, after signing a five-year extension in mid-’97, again in ’99.
• Roger Clemens, following a 2004 season in which he’d joined the Astros, having been lured out of retirement by close friend and former Yankees teammate Andy Pettitte’s decision to sign with Houston. Pitching on a one-year, $5 million deal, Clemens proceeded to go 18-4 with a 2.98 ERA and 218 strikeouts at age 41 en route to his record seventh Cy Young award and his 10th All-Star selection. He re-signed with Houston on a one-year, $18 million deal (a single-season record for a pitcher), lowered his ERA to 1.87, made another All-Star team, and helped the Astros to their first World Series.

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The St. Louis Cardinals are having a terrible postseason at the plate. They were no-hit for seven and two-third innings by Aníbal Sánchez for goodness sake, and while their subsequent struggles against Max Scherzer and Stephen Strasburg made more sense, it’s fair to say the team has a problem. But St. Louis had the worst non-pitcher wRC+ among teams to qualify for the postseason, so it’s hardly a surprise to see its roster scuffle against playoff rotations.

The Cardinals’ recent three game stretch of futility leaves their team postseason slash line at .207/.264/.331, a truly grim line. No one is questioning their credentials as the worst postseason offense. The next team on the list, though, might surprise you: it’s the Houston Astros, who are hitting a collective .218/.281/.367 through seven games. A dramatic Carlos Correa home run evened their series with the Yankees 1-1, but they’ve still only produced three runs over two games of the ALCS.

Houston’s offensive ineptitude hasn’t yet caught up to them, but it’s still concerning. Heck, the team literally cracked the code in their shelling of Tyler Glasnow in the ALDS, and their offense has struggled mightily even after accounting for that. There’s some chance, however remote, that the Astros’ offense is doomed, that everyone turned into a pumpkin at once. There’s a higher chance that we should just completely ignore this result; during the regular season, the offense produced a 126 wRC+, easily the best in baseball. But rather than take either extreme course, let’s take a closer look at what has happened and see if we can find any takeaways.

One thing you’ll hear ad nauseam at FanGraphs is that context is important when it comes to looking at a team’s season-long stats. Postseason rosters can be constructed quite differently than a team’s regular-season squad, and looking at 162 games of fill-ins and getaway day lineups can obscure a team’s true talent level. Read the rest of this entry »