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In his piece this morning about Carlos Martinez and Trevor Rosenthal, Jeff wrote about Mike Matheny’s decision to stay with Martinez against David Ortiz, rather than go to the left-handed Randy Choate, in the 8th inning: The relevant post-game quote, again:

It’s not an easy decision. Knowing that we have a left-hander up and ready to go. A lot of it has to do with what we see, how the ball is coming out of Carlos’s hands at that time. We have two guys on base, one by an error and another by a ball that made it’s way kinda through the infield. Looked like he had real good life. And if we get through Ortiz, then we have an opportunity to use Carlos’s good life right there against a Napoli, where we don’t have to bring Trevor in more than one. Not an easy call, but we liked the way Carlos was throwing the ball at that particular time.

It’s probably really hard to take Carlos Martinez out of the game, I imagine. When you have that kind of stuff, and he’s been dominating the way he was in the postseason, it has to be tempting to just say “hey, let’s stick with the kid who throws 100.” Martinez isn’t a righty specialist, and as Eno Sarris pointed out before the series began, Ortiz struggled against especially hard fastballs this year, hitting just .238/.284/.365 on at-bats that ended with a fastball of 94+ mph.

Perhaps Martinez’s premium velocity makes him a better match-up there than the platoon splits would indicate. And, as Matheny noted, keeping Martinez in to face Ortiz meant that he also got to stay in to face Napoli, and he put some value on not having to make two pitching changes, including one that would force Trevor Rosenthal to enter the game in the 8th inning, then sit around and wait for the 9th to begin before taking the mound again.

But, while acknowledging that Matheny noted this was a difficult decision, it is not hard to see that decision as part of a broader pattern, as Mike Matheny has consistently chosen the pitcher on the mound over a potentially more attractive match-up available out of the bullpen. In fact, Matheny made perhaps an even more questionable decision to let Ortiz face a right-hander two innings earlier.

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Here’s something you might not have known about the Red Sox: they’re good, especially at the hitting part. Over the course of the regular season, they scored 853 runs in 1439 innings, or about 0.6 runs per. Pitchers facing the Red Sox posted a 5.02 ERA, nearly half a run higher than the next-highest mark. As the Red Sox demonstrated in Game 1, they’re capable of scoring runs in a hurry, which, incidentally, is the only thing they do in a hurry, and this is one of the reasons why the Sox are probably the best team in baseball. That statement should hold true no matter how this series ends up.

Much of the talk after Game 2 is focusing on the top of the seventh, when the Cardinals rallied and took advantage of some defensive lapses to establish a two-run lead. In that frame the Cardinals went ahead 4-2; by that score, the Cardinals were triumphant. But a two-run lead against the Red Sox in Fenway is precarious, no matter how it’s achieved. Better to be ahead than behind, of course, but the Cardinals couldn’t have considered their position safe. They still needed to keep the Red Sox off the board, and that’s where Carlos Martinez and Trevor Rosenthal came in handy.

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Mike Napoli was the 9th batter to hit last night, if you’re counting batters from when Matt Carpenter led off for St. Louis. Napoli launched a three run double to left center field, clearing the bases thanks to the help of Shane Robinson‘s defensive misplay. From that point on, there were exactly three at-bats where the leverage index was greater than 1.0; Dustin Pedroia’s bases loaded chance in the second, and then the at-bats by Yadier Molina and David Freese when the Cardinals had their best chance of scoring in the fourth.

It’s not entirely accurate to say that the game was decided by Napoli’s double, but it was mostly decided after the Red Sox took a 5-0 lead in the second inning. At that point, their win expectancy was 92%, and the play where the fifth run scored forced Carlos Beltran from the game, limiting the Cardinals line-up and forcing Jon Jay into the #2 spot in the batting order against a good left-handed pitcher. This game was, for all intents and purposes, pretty much over after the second inning. Game 1 of the World Series was a blowout.

Except, it wasn’t really a blowout. It was on the scoreboard, but that’s basically the only place where the Red Sox really trounced the Cardinals last night.

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Wednesday night, in Game 1 of the World Series, Jon Lester was good. The Cardinals’ hitters, in turn, were not, or at least their performance was not, and as a consequence, the Cardinals lost. The Red Sox are now ahead by a game, and the Cardinals have as long as possible to wait for the next start by Adam Wainwright.

That’s the story, basically. It’s not the story that’s going to get all of the physical and electronic ink — the Cardinals’ defense, early on, was atrocious, and Wainwright gave up a few solid hits, and Carlos Beltran got hurt robbing a grand slam, and David Ortiz subsequently got his home run anyway to pour gravy all over the blowout. There’s a lot that’ll be written about what went wrong for St. Louis early. There’s a lot that’ll be written about the implications of Beltran being injured. But the Cardinals didn’t score a run until Ryan Dempster hung a splitter in the top of the ninth. With some luck, this game could’ve been closer. With some luck, this game could’ve been even more lopsided. Against Lester, the Cardinals just weren’t going to win without a miracle.

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The last time the Red Sox met the Cardinals in the World Series, the hero of Game One was a Three True Outcomes infielder who was often criticized for being too patient at the plate. In 2004, Mark Bellhorn lined an eighth-inning home run off the Pesky Pole to give Boston an 11-9 win. They went on to sweep the Series.

The shaggy-haired Bellhorn would have fit in well with this year’s team As most FanGraphs readers know, the Red Sox epitomize patience and exude power. They saw more pitches than any team in baseball and were seventh among the 30 teams in Three True Outcome results [32.4 percent].

Tonight went according to script. St. Louis starter Adam Wainwright had both a walk and a strikeout in a three-run Boston first inning. He threw 31 pitches.

Call it “The Red Sox Way.”

Coming into the Series, much was made of “The Cardinal Way.” Read the rest of this entry »

The league’s getting faster. Not the time of game — fastball velocity. And throwing some of the fastest fastballs in a league of fast have been the Cardinals, whose 92.6 mph average as a staff was good for third overall this year. The Red Sox did fine against a Tigers team that was only .3 mph short of that average, but going into this World Series, it’s still fair to say they will see some fastballs that are over 94 mph. And it’s fair to wonder how they’ll do against that added oomph.

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After several years of trying to fill the post-Manny hole in left field with the likes of Carl Crawford, Bill Hall (!), Scott Podsednik, & Jeremy Hermida, the Red Sox actually managed to put together a cost-effective and productive platoon situation in 2013.

Returnee Daniel Nava would hit the righties (and he did, with a .392 wOBA), and free agent acquisition Jonny Gomes would hit the lefties, which he did as well, putting up a .346 wOBA split. Including the surprising Mike Carp, who was acquired in February when the Mariners couldn’t find room for him and who shockingly hit everyone (.382 wOBA), the Red Sox left fielders put up the team’s most valuable season for the position since 2009, also known as “the last year Jason Bay was any good”.

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Free agency begins five days after the end of the World Series. As in other recent offseasons, FanGraphs once again facilitated this offseason a contract-crowdsourcing project, the idea being to harness the wisdom of the crowds to the end of better understanding the 2013-14 free-agent market.

Below are the results of same. For each player, respondents provided estimates of the years/dollars each free agent is likely to receive (denoted as Real) and also how much they — were they, themselves, actual GMs — would offer each free agent in terms of years and dollars (denoted as Fake).

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Hey there, baseball fans or people at least aware of baseball fans, and welcome to the first part of probably the year’s last edition of The Worst Of The Best. Beginning this Wednesday night, we’ll have the World Series, and this year’s World Series might well feature baseball’s two best teams in the Red Sox and Cardinals. A lot of good baseball allowed these players to become what they are today, and a lot of good baseball allowed these teams to get to where they are today. It’s arguably the right matchup, even if it isn’t necessarily the most compelling matchup. In honor of quality baseball, then, I thought I’d seize this opportunity to reflect on really bad pitches and swings. This is the post where we look at the bad pitches. Here’s a link to the full series archive.

What you’re going to see below are the five wildest pitches from the 2013 regular season, as determined, in three instances, by PITCHf/x and elementary math. In the other two instances, they were determined by visual observation, by me. The idea is to capture pitches furthest from the center of the strike zone, and you’re going to run across a lot of .gifs and screenshots, in case you’re worried about locking up your computer made of balsa wood. It’s been like this all season. There’s no sense in complaining today. I promise we’re almost through.

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