An injury only hurts a team as much as the replacement lets it. The Dodgers were able to withstand their record-setting number of injuries because of what they had behind the guys who got hurt. Not every team has the luxury of being able to simply plug a Julio Urias or a Brandon McCarthy into the rotation when their top starters go down. And so when Carlos Carrasco and Danny Salazar each suffered season-ending injuries for the Cleveland Indians in the final month of the season, it was Josh Tomlin who was forced back into the postseason rotation picture, casting doubt on Cleveland’s chances of a deep October run. It’s also been Josh Tomlin who’s held two of baseball’s most imposing lineups — Boston and now Toronto — to three runs in two starts and helped the Indians come within two games of their first World Series appearance in 20 years.

It’s difficult to completely fault Tomlin’s doubters. By the end of August, he’d pitched himself out of Cleveland’s rotation, with a 4.89 ERA and a 5.24 FIP over 25 starts, and even during his best stretches, Tomlin’s rarely looked like much more than a home run-prone, back-end innings eater. Despite that, he’s held the Red Sox and Blue Jays at bay, and now has a 1.98 ERA in six starts since returning to the rotation. The secret, at least in the postseason? Pitching nothing like himself:
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Yesterday, our own Eno Sarris astutely pointed out the advantage that a fastball-heavy pitching staff like the Blue Jays might have against the Indians lineup, who have done the overwhelming majority of their damage on slow stuff and have struggled against heaters. And while I do believe it’s true that, on the whole, Toronto’s fastballing ways could still give the Indians lineup fits, I go thinking about a couple follow-up point that might be important, and that might help mitigate this potential advantage.

Namely, I got to thinking about Marco Estrada, because it’s fun to think about Marco Estrada; Marco Estrada is a fascinatingly unique pitcher. Estrada is set to start Game 1 of the NLCS for Toronto against Cleveland in a few hours and, according to our PITCHf/x run values, Estrada had something like baseball’s 11th-most valuable fastball, right between Robbie Ray and Stephen Strasburg. Strasburg throws 95. Ray throws 94. Makes sense — the best fastballs are usually the fastest fastballs. Not Estrada, though. Estrada’s fastball sits 88. Estrada’s fastball is all about spin, and how it plays off his changeup, and since it’s so different, I got to wondering if maybe Estrada’s elite fastball plays by different rules than the fastballs against which Cleveland struggles.

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The Indians go into tonight’s ALCS Game 1 against the Blue Jays with momentum. They just swept the Boston Red Sox in the ALDS. After winning a pair at home, Cleveland eked out a nail-biter at Fenway Park behind a strong effort by unheralded right-hander Josh Tomlin, prudent bullpen usage, and — as they did throughout the series — the execution of a well-formulated game plan.

The Indians were underdogs. They won 94 regular-season games and captured the AL Central, but they lacked the star power of their first-round opponent. The same will be true when they face Toronto. Moreover, their No. 2 and 3 starters — Danny Salazar and Carlos Carrasco — are on the shelf with injuries. When the latter went down in mid-September, it was written that they were no longer serious postseason contenders. Despite the inevitable backlash, many outside the organization agreed with that opinion.

The extent to which the proverbial chip on the club’s collective shoulder contributed to the sweep can’t be quantified. It was undoubtably there, but by no means was it the biggest factor. The roster is more talented than many realize, and manager Terry Francona knows how to optimize it. Behind the scenes is one of baseball’s most analytically savvy front offices.

How do the players, coaches and executives view the battles with Boston, and their underdog role going forward? I queried several (including a few from the losing side) both before ALDS Game 3 and during its champagne-soaked aftermath.

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On Coming to Fenway Park for ALDS Game 3

Cody Allen, before Game 3: “I don’t think there’s really any momentum involved. They’re coming back into their home ballpark, and they probably feel pretty good coming back here to play. This is two very good baseball teams going at it. ”

Josh Tomlin, before Game 3: “You know that it’s going to be a packed house. It’s going to be rowdy and loud. The reason you play the game is for opportunities like this. I couldn’t be happier to be pitching here.”

Josh Tomlin, after Game 3: “We knew what we were getting ourselves into, coming here. I was surprised they knew my name, to be honest with you. It was awesome. Once they started chanting my name, it became real. I knew where I was at.”

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Over time, teams take on the characteristics of some of their key players in the minds of analysts and fans. The Rays are eternally linked with Evan Longoria, known for power taking precedence at the plate, with a focus on defense. Similarly, Ryan Braun is the poster child for the Brewers, a bat-oriented player without a material defensive presence.

This week and next, let’s allow the players themselves to fade into the background, and draw some conclusions from a simple set of numbers — namely, each of the 10 playoff clubs’ team ball-in-play (BIP) statistics, broken down by exit speed and launch angles. We’ll examine what made these teams tick during the regular season and allowed them to play meaningful October baseball.

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Earlier this morning, I wrote about the exploitable advantage the Indians’ offense ought to have against Blue Jays pitching in the ALCS, in that Toronto’s been notoriously susceptible to allowing stolen bases this season, while Cleveland’s notoriously successful in stealing bases themselves. And, while it’s not always true that good base-stealers are also good baserunners, it’s the logical line of thinking, and in this particular instance, it’s true.

We host a stat here on FanGraphs called Ultimate Base Running (UBR), which filters out stolen base attempts and focuses just on a player’s ability and efficiency in taking the extra base on hits and tagging up on fly balls. As a team, the Indians rank second in baseball in this measure, behind only the historic Padres. On an individual level, Jose Ramirez was baseball’s best baserunner. Rajai Davis ranked seventh, among 268 batters with at least 300 plate appearances. Jason Kipnis, Tyler Naquin, and Carlos Santana were all soundly above-average, and in fact, Mike Napoli and Chris Gimenez are the only members of Cleveland’s postseason roster that were soundly below-average at taking the extra base.

For more context, the league-average in taking the extra base on a hit is 40%. Cleveland ranked second, successfully taking the extra base on 45% of their hits, when possible. They led baseball in scoring from second on a single, doing so 129 times in 184 opportunities. Ramirez did this 18 times, while taking the extra base in 60% of his opportunities. Francisco Lindor scored from second on a single 17 times. There’s either speed, baserunning instincts, or a combination of both, all throughout Cleveland’s lineup.

This is simply one of the tents of this Cleveland team. Been that way all season. Nothing new here. Like the stolen bases, it only becomes interesting in the context of the upcoming series when you consider the opponent.

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Over the coming weeks, Eric Longenhagen will publish brief, informal notes from his looks at the prospects of the Arizona Fall League and, until mid-October, Fall Instructional League. Find previous editions here.

I was in Mesa for the afternoon Fall League game and was walking through the parking lot to the stadium when I saw Chicago RHP Dylan Cease warming up for the Cubs and Angels’ combined advanced-instructional-league team for their game against the Reds. I stayed for Cease’s first inning during which he sat 96-plus and touched 99 three times. His breaking ball was the best I’ve seen it, flashing plus once or twice while always having shape and depth, though its bite was inconsistent. He struck out the side, including T.J. Friedl and Phillip Ervin of Cincinnati.

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The starting pitching staff of the Toronto Blue Jays possesses an inherent advantage over the lineup of the Cleveland Indians in the ALCS, in that Indians hitters do the brunt of their damage on offspeed and breaking pitches, while Blue Jays pitchers rely on the fastball moreso than any other team, as our own Eno Sarris wrote about earlier this morning. Both teams know this, and both teams will attempt to adjust accordingly in order to maximize or limit the effect of this matchup in their favor. That’s what happens in the postseason, when every little piece of information becomes that much more valuable.

Along those same lines, but on the flip side, there’s also a weakness shared by many of those same fastballing Blue Jays pitchers that perhaps no team other than the Indians is better suited to exploit. Whatever inherent disadvantage Indians hitters may have at the plate, they may make up for on the bases.

We saw what kind of an effect controlling the running game can have in the postseason when the Royals ran wild on Jon Lester and the A’s in the Wild Card game two years ago. And while none of the Blue Jays pitchers are quite at Lester-level mediocrity in this facet of the game, only three of Kansas City’s seven stolen bases in that game came against Lester. Part of it was Lester. Part of it were the relievers who replaced Lester. Part of it was the catcher, Derek Norris.

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A while back, August Fagerstrom noticed a near-historic aspect of the Cleveland Indians’ offense. They do really well against breaking and offspeed pitches. They led the non-Colorado division of baseball in slugging percentage against those pitches, and they had one of the most extreme splits as an offense against fastballs, as opposed to breaking/offspeed pitches, in the history of baseball. That’s quite a strength.

Of course, it’s a strength that belies a relative weakness on the other side. Take a look at how the Indians ranked in production against fastballs when judged by pitch-type values in the American League this year.

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The Indians finished the regular season fifth in total runs scored. They finished seventh in wOBA and sixth in wRC+, so it all kind of makes sense. The one thing that’s odd about it is that the Indians played pretty much the entire year without one of their best hitters. The Indians were 18th in runs in 2015, and then they lost Michael Brantley. As much as last year’s Brantley was slightly diminished, that still seemed like it should’ve been a massive blow.

For sure, this year’s Cleveland offense was powered by depth. It helped to have Jose Ramirez emerge in the way that he did. And there’s also the fact that the players can run — the Indians finished as easily the best baserunning team in the American League. There are so many different things that make the lineup tick, but there’s one aspect that isn’t talked about enough, one thing that makes the Indians out to be better than the sum of their parts.

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Zach Britton has recently found himself at the forefront of baseball consciousness for a lot reasons, mostly positive, some negative, albeit through no fault of his own. He had a supremely excellent season in a tightly tailored, typical closer’s role for the Orioles, and his non-usage in last week’s wild-card game has almost become a caricature, a metaphor for outdated laissez-faire managerial strategies.

He will certainly receive many, many Cy Young votes, and might even walk off with the award. In my piece here last week, I compared his 2016 performance to some of the top seasons produced by AL starters, utilizing granular batted-ball data, and found that, while Britton does at least belong in the conversation, he didn’t deliver as much production to his club, in a year that is admittedly without a runaway choice among starting pitchers. What if I told you, however, that Britton didn’t even have the best season among AL relief pitchers?

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