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“More breaking balls!” That’s how Theo Epstein characterized the postseason for Brian Kenny on the latter’s lead-in show before Game Five of the World Series. It’s a notable observation insofar as it’s a little more actual content than you typically get publicly from a high-ranking front-office exec, but it’s also a matter of public record that his team was seeing a ton of breaking balls in the World Series. Dave Cameron, for example, took an excellent look at the subject earlier this week.

What’s interesting about Epstein’s comment, however, is how he was somehow able to remain vague about his point, even as he seemed to be offering something incredibly specific. He suggests there are more breaking balls in the playoffs, sure. But it’s not clear if he’s implying that there are more breaking balls every postseason for every team, or merely that there were more this postseason for his team, or something in between.

This postseason was defined by a transformation in bullpen usage; that’s not up for discussion, really. But it seems possible that pitching mixes themselves also changed this postseason. And while it would be impossible for Andrew Miller to throw 225 innings and strike out nearly 400 batters — the unfathomable numbers you get if you prorate his postseason work to a full season out of the pen — it might be possible for starting pitchers to throw more breaking balls all season. This postseason trend (if it actually exists) could inform the regular season in a real way.

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This is August Fagerstrom’s last piece here. As he announced on Tuesday, he has taken a position with a Major League team, and that organization will now benefit from the insights that we will miss. August wrote this piece before officially leaving, but we wanted to save it for after the World Series storm had calmed down, since it deserved not to get overshadowed by Chicago’s celebration.

What will be remembered about this year’s postseason, for the rest of history, is the Chicago Cubs winning the World Series. It hadn’t happened in 108 years, if you didn’t hear. That’s the big takeaway here. Beyond that: Game Seven. Game Seven was crazy! We’ll be talking about Game Seven for years.

The other part of the equation is the Cleveland Indians, and the story that seems most likely to be remembered about them was how far they got with so relatively little. The team with the super-rotation at the beginning of the season that was left with scraps at the end. Despite missing two of their three best starters in Carlos Carrasco and Danny Salazar, Cleveland held three of baseball’s most threatening lineups in Boston, Toronto, and Chicago to 42 runs in 15 games, good for a 2.69 ERA, while tossing a record-setting five shutouts. They rode Corey Kluber, Andrew Miller, and Cody Allen as far as they could, but even guys like Josh Tomlin and Ryan Merritt (?!) handed the ball off to the Millers and the Allens with a lead more often than not.

Throughout the postseason, every Indians pitcher was quick to mention the game plan, the approach, and the way catcher Roberto Perez attacked the hitters. Part of that is typical athlete speak, sure. Almost always, these guys are going to deflect and give credit to their teammates. But what does that really mean? What goes into a pre-series, or even pre-game scouting report? Who’s the brains behind that operation? How many brains are behind that operation? And what happens when it makes its way out onto the field?
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Below is an analysis of the prospects in the San Diego Padres farm system. Scouting reports are compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as from my own observations. The KATOH statistical projections, probable-outcome graphs, and (further down) Mahalanobis comps have been provided by Chris Mitchell. For more information on thes 20-80 scouting scale by which all of my prospect content is governed you can click here. For further explanation of the merits and drawbacks of Future Value, read this. -Eric Longenhagen

The KATOH projection system uses minor-league data and Baseball America prospect rankings to forecast future performance in the major leagues. For each player, KATOH produces a WAR forecast for his first six years in the major leagues. There are drawbacks to scouting the stat line, so take these projections with a grain of salt. Due to their purely objective nature, the projections here can be useful in identifying prospects who might be overlooked or overrated. Due to sample-size concerns, only players with at least 200 minor-league plate appearances or batters faced last season have received projections. -Chris Mitchell

Other Lists
NL West (ARI, COL, LAD, SD, SF)
AL Central (CHW, CLE, DET, KC, MIN)
NL Central (CHC, CIN, PIT, MIL, StL)
NL East (ATL, MIA, NYM, PHI, WAS)
AL East (BAL, BOS, NYY, TB, TOR)

60 FV Prospects

Relevant/Interesting Metrics
Recorded just 5.6% walk rate after trade to San Diego.

Scouting Report
Espinoza got a $1.8 million bonus in 2014 despite his diminutive stature because, despite a lack of height, his arm worked incredibly well and he already showed terrific feel for spin. He was unhittable in the GCL when he debuted stateside, allowing just three earned runs in 40 innings there. He wasn’t as dominant in 2016 and reports of his stuff and performance were a little inconsistent, after he was traded to San Diego for Drew Pomeranz, but this was an 18-year-old dealing with severance from the organization that changed his life and his peripherals were good despite inflated ERAs. By the time instructional league arrived, things had come together and Espinoza was arguably the best pitching prospect throwing during instructs in either Arizona or Florida. He was 95-97 with movement in an abbreviated final instructional-league outing and flashed a plus-plus curveball.

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The nation finally got to know Ben Zobrist last year. Six years after the Rays utility-man-turned-superstar emerged as one of baseball’s best players, he got to play on the game’s biggest stage, and he became a champion. His previous three postseason appearances never made it past the first round; his World Series in 2008, he was still a part-time player. Last year, Zobrist was a key cog, a player for whom the Royals traded at the deadline, a player who they potentially might not have won the World Series without. But he wasn’t the story. The story was Eric Hosmer’s mad dash, the story was Ned Yost, the story was Wade Davis and the bullpen, the story was the Royals defense. Ben Zobrist was a secondary player, as he’s unfairly been his entire career.

This time around, Zobrist is no longer a secondary player. This time around, Zobrist is the Most Valuable Player. Zobrist finally had his moment, and baseball’s longtime most underrated player will never be underrated by the history books again. These two championships, and this MVP, are here forever.

Zobrist slashed .357/.419/.500 over 31 plate appearances in the World Series, and led the Cubs with 0.72 Win Probability Added. With the bat, context included, no Cubs hitter did more in the World Series to contribute to this championship than Zobrist. His biggest hit of all came in Game Seven.

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The Chicago Cubs just won the World Series, their first in 108 years. The way this team is constructed, though, they might not have to wait long for another one.

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By the time a pitcher gets to October, his body and his mind are headed in different directions. The head can’t stop racing, but the body is battered by six months’ worth of battle. That probably seems intuitive, but it’s actually relevant tonight in a very concrete way: Cleveland right-hander Corey Kluber is once again going to climb the mound on short rest, with body and mind at odds. Here’s the good news for Indians fans, though: while the results of postseason short-rest starts isn’t great, the process — which is to say, the movement and velocity recorded on pitches — suggests that adrenaline trumps all when it comes to postseason ball.

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Unofficially, Game 6 was over in the blink of an eye. Officially, it wasn’t complete for three and a half hours, but from close to the start, most fans were thinking ahead to Wednesday. Even while Game 6 was going, Game 7 was on everyone’s mind, as we prepared for the most anticipated showdown in, what, at least 15 years? You’re on this site right now to read about baseball, but you’re not looking to read about the game in the books. You want to read about the finale. Nothing is ever as important as it is in the finale.

Game 7 presents a funny situation. It’s one game, so it could turn on almost literally anything. In Game 6, after all, the biggest point according to win expectancy was Addison Russell’s routine fly ball that somehow dropped between two outfielders. Who would’ve guessed? You can’t predict any one-game scenario. At the same time, it’s never more critical to maximize the odds. Strategic calls are at their most important. Bullpen usage is at its most important. Lineup construction is at its most important. There’s nothing after Game 7 but gray clouds and winter. Half of the players will have a happier winter than the others.

As that lineup construction goes for the Cubs — look, I don’t want to deceive you. This isn’t that critical. What I’m writing about probably won’t make the biggest difference. But I see a case for starting David Ross over Willson Contreras. It has a lot to do with a guy supposedly available out of the bullpen.

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In order to keep their season alive, the Cubs had to win Game Six. They won Game Six. Tomorrow, they play for all the marbles, with one more win bringing the franchise their first championship in 108 years. From that perspective, tonight was a success. Full stop.

But that perspective is a particularly binary view of the world, with only good and bad outcomes, and no room for the shades of gray that make up real life. In this world, things can be somewhat good, or very good, or painfully awful, or just kind of not great. In this world, we have not two possible outcomes, but thousands of them, with differing levels of magnitude. And from a perspective that accounts for the different magnitudes of outcomes, this Cubs win isn’t quite as great as it could have been. This win came with a cost, and probably unnecessarily so.

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It says something when a pitcher wins 18 games, records a 3.10 ERA, and people are still left wondering what went wrong. Nevertheless, that’s the case for Jake Arrieta and his 2016 season. Because he’s almost cut his slider usage in half this year — and because that alteration coincided with less dominant results than his 2015 campaign — much of the discourse settles on that pitch. His manager even admitted to wondering about it: “The break on the slider/cutter/whatever you want to call it has been more inconsistent,” Joe Maddon said after a poor outing by Arrieta in July.

The Cubs need Arrieta to find his slider tonight in Game Six in order to force this World Series to continue. By one metric — usage — the righty has returned to normal with the pitch. But has he really found it again? To answer the question, we first we need to figure out what he lacked this season relative to last; then we can see if things have returned to normal in the meantime. We’ll break the pitch down by three components: velocity, movement, and command.

Velocity
It’s tempting to point to velocity as the problem. Arrieta has lost a mile per hour on his slider from last year, and velocity is the most important aspect of a slider when it comes to whiffs. Case closed.

Except! Arrieta was up a tick on the fastball and the slider in 2015. Arrieta lost that tick, but he returned to the same velocity that he possessed in 2014, when he posted a 2.53 ERA and broke out with the Cubs. He struck out a batter more per nine innings in 2014, too, so it’s not just ERA that indicates Arrieta has been effective with an 89 mph slider.

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