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 »

After the first two games of the World Series, the Red Sox are probably feeling pretty good. With two victories already to their credit, they need to win just two of their next five contests to win this year’s title. The odds are in their favor.

As they begin the the first of three games in Los Angeles, however, they have a decision to make regarding their lineup, owing to the absence of the designated hitter in a National League park. The issue comes up every year, but rarely does it present much difficulty to decision-makers. Most American League champions feature either feature a DH who isn’t worth playing elsewhere or an obvious weakness somewhere in the lineup.

That isn’t so much the case for J.D. Martinez and the Boston Red Sox, however.

Consider some examples from recent World Series. In 2014, Billy Butler DH’d for the Royals in Kansas City but only pinch-hit in San Francisco. Kendrys Morales played the same role for the 2015 edition of the Royals. Last year, it was the Astros’ Evan Gattis. Only Cleveland, during their series against the Cubs, was forced to take some unusual measures to include their usual DH in the lineup, placing Carlos Santana in the outfield. That said, Cleveland also lacked a surplus of great outfield options at the time.

The last legitimately good AL player forced from a lineup when the World Series headed to an NL park was probably Kevin Youkilis in 2007, when the presence of David Ortiz sent him to the bench. But the current version of the Red Sox will be forced to take similar steps in Los Angeles. Martinez was a six-win player this season, with a 170 wRC+ as Boston’s designated hitter, marking the best season by a DH since Ortiz’s 2007 campaign for the world champions. Martinez needs to go to an outfield corner, and even if he we assume that he had just bested (worsted?) the single-season low for UZR (-36 runs, set by Brad Hawpe in 2008), he still would have recorded nearly four wins this season. He needs to be in the lineup, right?

It would seem so, yes, but once Martinez goes into the outfield, one of the following scenarios needs to occur:

1. The Red Sox bench Jackie Bradley Jr.; or
2. they bench Andrew Benintendi; or
3. they play Mookie Betts at second base.

Mike Petriello made the case for the third option over at MLB.com. In that piece, he notes that the decision is easier in games Four and Five with a lefty on the mound, mentions the lack of potential opportunities for Betts at second base based on Red Sox pitching and Dodgers hitters, says the offensive numbers are a wash, and concludes thusly:

So if the lineup choices are a wash, this comes down to defense. Martinez is a sizable step down from Betts in right, but he’s got to be there if we want his bat in the lineup. Betts is likely a small step down from Bradley in center, probably a barely perceptible one, but that matters with Martinez in right. And at second, Holt is worse than Kinsler, but better than Betts. You could argue in either direction. Either way, Betts and Martinez must both play, and Bradley’s defense is more valuable than Holt’s.

Maybe putting Betts at second base is too radical for the World Series. Perhaps Cora will just keep it simple and bench Bradley, starting Holt or Kinsler at second base. It’s the easy way to go, and Red Sox fans know better than most how hard one poorly-timed defensive miscue can sting. But October is when the tough choices mean the most. Putting Betts at second is far from traditional. It just might be the right thing to do.

Petriello presents an interesting argument, but I’m not sure it is the correct one. Instead of separating offense and defense, let’s try to combine them. First, here are the player projections with a slight platoon adjustment for the lefties against a potential righty in Walker Buehler.

That’s what things look like when the players are all playing their normal positions. I’m leaving Martinez where he is, since the DH penalty is roughly equivalent to a -10 outfielder, a figure that seems about right. In the scenario where Betts goes to second base, we have to remove about a win off his value because of the change in defensive position. He’s a great outfielder, yes, but given his lack of recent play at second base, it’s probably not reasonable to expect even average defense from him, regardless of how many grounders he’s taken over the last few years. Putting that into the calculation, we see these numbers for the four outfield slots plus second base.

Maybe Betts is better at second base than we think. Maybe Martinez is worse in the outfield. What happens if we replace Bradley with Betts in center field and put Kinsler at second base.

Betts isn’t likely to lose any value in center field given his range and arm are just as good as Bradley Jr.’s, even by Statcast metrics. Whatever he would theoretically lose in terms of fielding runs from the move, he would gain back by means of the center-field positional adjustment.

Whatever the case, it appears as though the difference between the two alignments — if one exists — is just a few runs. And while that’s minuscule over the course of one game, logic dictates that, when the radical solution doesn’t come out any better in the numbers, it probably isn’t worth the downside risk. The argument holds whether Benintendi or Bradley Jr. is benched. Given that Bradley Jr. seems more likely to hit the bench against a lefty on Saturday and Sunday (if necessary), I think it raises the argument that it is Benintendi who should sit against Walker Buehler.

Given Benintendi’s spot in the batting order, it is fairly clear that Alex Cora feels it is his left fielder who hits lefties (and righties) better than Bradley Jr. The projections (with defense) put the two players as near equals. Against Buehler, that means Cora is simply choosing offense or defense in Los Angeles with the other a potential pinch hitter. Neither option is a bad choice, but since Bradley Jr. still projects competently on offense against a righty, choosing defense over offense — in light of Martinez’s presence in the field — it makes sense to go with Bradley Jr. over Benintendi. The Red Sox center fielder has been unlucky with the bat this season by xwOBA, and it is possible projections are underrating his ability.

The graph below shows all players with 500 plate appearances with their xwOBA and wOBA, per Baseball Savant. Those players above the line are underperforming their xwOBA, while those players below the line are overperforming it.

Most of the players who undershoot their wOBA based on their xWOBA are slow as seen by the table below.

It’s a bunch of really slow guys, a player who gets massively shifted in Joey Gallo, and then Marcell Ozuna and Bradley Jr. The Red Sox center fielder has hit a lot better than his batting line indicates. At least against a righty starter, he deserves to play. With the pitcher’s spot inithe lineup, Benintendi will still have an opportunity to impact the game off the bench. It certainly feels odd to advocate benching one of Boston’s best players in Andrew Benintendi, but I suppose that is one of those good problems to have.

Every plate appearance, every run, and every win is magnified in the postseason. The Red Sox came to bat more than 6,000 times, scored nearly 900 runs, and won 108 games during the regular season. In the playoffs, it’s been roughly 400 plate appearances, 68 runs, and nine wins so far. Because it is the playoffs, and because it is fun and important and special, when players and teams do something out of the ordinary, it stands out and deserves greater discussion. This postseason, the Red Sox have scored more than half their runs with two outs and, with two outs and runners in scoring position, are hitting like J.D. Martinez in the middle of a hot streak. That’s amazing, and it is great for the Red Sox, but we should be a little leery of trying to extract some sort of design or strategy from this great run.

Over at the Athletic, Jayson Stark has some of the amazing numbers the Red Sox have put up this postseason, including how they’ve scored 36 of their 68 runs with two outs. Teams usually score about 37% of their runs with two outs, so an increase by close to 50% is impressive. To try and determine how unusual of an occurrence this is, I ran a simple test, looking at the percentage of team runs scored with two outs from August 1 to August 13 of this year, roughly approximating the number of games the Red Sox play in October. During that one random stretch, no team was as high as 53% like the Red Sox arecurrently, but four teams were above 45%, with the Nationals at 48% to top the league. This is just one random stretch, but with a standard deviation of seven percentage points, what the Red Sox are doing puts them in the top 5%.

Then, for the same dates, I looked at team stats for runners in scoring position with two outs. Nobody ran numbers quite like the current Red Sox streak, with a wRC+ in the 220s, but there were two teams with at least a 190 wRC+ in the sample. One of those teams was the Braves. The other was these Boston Red Sox. So while what the Red Sox are doing is unusual, it also isn’t something that is impossible — and, indeed, the Red Sox seemed to do it earlier this season in early August.

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Wobbly Dodgers starter pitches his way into a jam. Red Sox lineup turns over to the third time through the order. Manager Dave Roberts summons reliever Ryan Madson. All runners score, Red Sox take the lead for good. You could be forgiven for feeling a sense of déjà vu regarding the basic template of the first two games of the 2018 World Series.

The Dodgers beat the Braves in the Division Series and the Brewers in the and League Championship Series in part because Madson, an August 31 acquisition from the Nationals, came up very big in a few key spots, but they’re down two games to none in this World Series because he’s failed to replicate that success. But whereas one could point to at least half-a-dozen other mistakes the Dodgers made en route to losing Game One, particularly in the field — to say nothing of Roberts’ ill-fated summoning of Alex Wood, who surrendered a game-breaking three-run homer to Eduardo Nunez — the Madson move stood out in Game Two, in part because the Dodgers played a cleaner game and in part because it cost them their only lead in this series thus far.

The Dodgers traded for Madson not only because they needed additional bullpen support due to myriad injuries but because the 13-year veteran is about as battle-tested as they come. His numbers at the time of the trade weren’t good (5.28 ERA, 4.36 FIP, 21.0% strikeout rate, 0.0 WAR in 44.1 innings), but he’d made 47 postseason appearances (fifth all-time) in six previous trips (2008-11 with the Phillies, 2015 with the Royals and 2017 with the Nationals), winning World Series rings with the Phillies and the Royals. “The numbers aren’t indicative of the stuff,” Roberts said at the time. “For us, we’re betting on the stuff and the person.”

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Neither the Red Sox’ four-run margin of victory, nor the ease with which Craig Kimbrel finished off the ninth, really do justice to the intensity of Game One of the World Series. Despite the final score, only 10 of the game’s 80 plays took place with a run differential greater than two runs. There were 11 high-leverage plays overall, and the average leverage index was 1.14, which is higher than normal. It was a game with important, exciting moments — and none were more important than certain moments of the seventh inning.

In terms purely of win expectancy, Eduardo Nunez’s three-run homer in the bottom of the seventh off Alex Wood was the game’s top play. When Nunez stepped to the plate with runners on first and second, two outs, and a one-run lead, the Red Sox’ chances of winning the game were 77% — which is to say, good but far from from certain. After his three-run homer — which came off the bat with a launch angle just under 20 degrees but managed to clear the Green Monster, anyway — Boston’s win probability increased to 96%. The game was pretty much over.

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If the Milwaukee Brewers had managed to beat the Los Angeles Dodgers in the seventh game of the NLCS, this post would examine one of biggest payroll disparities in World Series history. The Brewers couldn’t quite get the job done, however. As a result, it’s the Dodgers who advance to the final round of the 2018 postseason, and instead we have the most expensive World Series in history.

The Red Sox are projected to record a final a payroll around $237 million, which is the highest in baseball. The Dodgers — after considerable cost-cutting measures during the offseason — will finish the year with a payroll close to $194 million, per Cot’s Contracts. The Dodgers’ figure will likely be the fourth highest in MLB this season behind the Red Sox, Nationals, and Giants. The $423 million spent on payroll by the two World Series participants this season is the most ever.

The payroll totals somehow don’t do justice to how much these clubs have spent to get here. The Dodgers have spent $1.249 billion over the past five years, for an average payroll of $250 million. That’figure comes before accounting for the $28 million per season the Dodgers have paid in competitive-balance taxes. The Red Sox payroll this season — due to the Dodgers’ and Yankees’ efforts to get under the $197 million tax threshold — is more than $30 million clear of the second-place Nationals. When the club’s $10 million tax bill is considered, the team’s payroll is more than 20% higher than the Nationals. The difference between the Red Sox and Nationals is roughly the same as the difference between the Nationals and the 12th-place Mets. The Red Sox have spent $987.1 million on the team over the past five years, for an average payroll of $197 million — and just a bit over $200 million when factoring in taxes paid. Only the Dodgers and Yankees have spent more during that time.

As for the talent actually featured on the current rosters, the two clubs are very even: both had close to $155 million on the active roster in their respective LCSs. The graph below shows salaries (for competitive-balance tax purposes) for the players expected to play a role in the World Series. Players are shown by the amount of money the Red Sox or Dodgers are paying, not necessarily their full salary for the season. For example, Manny Machado is credited only with the portion of his salary for which the Dodgers are responsible following his acquisition from the Orioles.

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They’re contenders! Or wait, they’re not. No, they actually are! And… it’s gone. In 2018, the Pirates experienced a season of dramatic highs and lows only to end up with basically a .500 record, as if Odysseus had endured war and other dangers simply to end his journey at an Olive Garden.

The Setup

In a lot of ways, the Pirates are a bit of a cautionary tale for rebuilding teams. You can be smart, careful, forward-thinking, but if too many things go unexpectedly awry or you don’t push ahead at the right moment, your team’s peak can still be rather short-lived.

That’s not to say the Pirates are without accomplishment, having made three straight playoff appearances from 2013 to -15, the team’s first since they were giving a regular paycheck to a prime-age slugger by the name of Barry Lamar Bonds. The team of Frank Coonelly and Neal Huntington largely reversed the effects produced by 15 years of mismanagement from the Dave Littlefield and Cam Bonifay eras. Even when the team struggled in 2016-17, they never descended to the level of hapless joke, as had previously been the case.

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Gary Cohen (Mets), Dave Flemming (Giants), Andy Freed (Rays), Aaron Goldsmith (Mariners), Dave Jaegler (Nationals), Jeff Levering (Brewers), and Don Orsillo (Padres) share something in common. Each began broadcasting for a big-league team after honing his play-by-play skills with the Triple-A Pawtucket Red Sox. The pipeline runs deeper still. Dan Hoard (Bengals) and Bob Socci (Patriots) came to the NFL via the PawSox radio booth.

There’s a good chance that group will grow in the not-too-distant future. Will Flemming — Dave Flemming’s younger brother — has been calling PawSox games for the past four seasons, and many in the industry feel he’s of MLB quality.

He passed an important test this summer. Filling in for Tim Neverett, who was away for his father’s funeral, Flemming was alongside Joe Castiglione when the Red Sox hosted the Phillies on July 30. The game was a thriller, with Boston winning 2-1 in 13 innings.

“There were no low lights,” Flemming.said of his MLB debut “Not one. All of us in this profession dream of that moment, and to have it realized in that ballpark, with this Red Sox team against a good Philadelphia team — Price versus Nola — it was more than I ever could have dreamt of.”

He’s been imagining the moment for years. Despite his relatively young age — Flemming has yet to reach the big 4-0 — he’s no neophyte. His journey has included stints in Lancaster, Potomac, and Indianapolis. At each stop along the way — this is something all minor-league broadcasters can attest to — the frills have been few and far between. Read the rest of this entry »