The Detroit Tigers continue to ride their wave of jubilation into October.
The most surprising playoff team beat the Houston Astros 5–2 in Game 2 of the best-of-three Wild Card round on Wednesday to advance to the American League Division Series. Manager A.J. Hinch successfully navigated a bullpen game that included only two turbulent innings. Tyler Holton, who threw just two pitches in Detroit’s Game 1 victory, acted as a left-handed opener to ensure the hard-hitting heart of Houston’s order (Kyle Tucker and Yordan Alvarez) would be forced to take an at-bat against a lefty.
After a clean first from Holton, sinkerballer Brenan Hanifee entered the game and narrowly escaped a scoreless second inning that featured two heart-stopping foul balls off the bat of Jason Heyward, either of which would’ve been a one- or two-run double with two outs. Hanifee gave the Tigers five outs, wrapping up his day against Jose Altuve before another lefty, this time Brant Hurter, entered to face Tucker and Alvarez. Hinch’s shrewd matchups and the Tigers’ pitching staff held Tucker hitless in the series.
Every bullpen game comes with a sort of Russian Roulette-ish risk that any one of the pitchers might have a bad day and cough up the game on their own. Hurter, who had a microscopic 3% walk rate in his 45 big league innings this year, looked for a minute like he might be that guy. He surrendered four baserunners and four hard-hit balls across 1 2/3 innings, exiting when Houston’s lineup turned over to Altuve with one out and two runners on in the bottom of the fifth.
At that moment, Hinch called on high-leverage reliever Beau Brieske, who closed Tuesday’s Game 1, to face Altuve and the heavy-hitting part of the Astros order. After getting both Altuve and Tucker out to escape extreme danger in the fifth, Brieske became the pitcher of record in the next half inning when Parker Meadows broke the scoreless tie with a solo home run off of Hunter Brown, who had been dealing to that point. Brown’s pitch to Meadows wasn’t bad; it was so far inside that most hitters would’ve at best been jammed by it, but somehow Meadows tucked his hands in, steered it fair, and doinked it off the right field foul pole.
This was the lone blemish in an otherwise stellar day for Brown, who allowed just four baserunners and struck out nine across 5 2/3 innings. Brieske, who as a former soft-tossing starter turned fire-breathing reliever looks like he might be a Liam Hendriks sequel of sorts, navigated the rest of the top half of Houston’s order in the bottom of the sixth.
Then for a couple innings all hell broke loose. Hinch called upon 22-year-old Jackson Jobe, one of baseball’s best pitching prospects, to work the bottom of the seventh. Jobe, who entered the game with four innings of Major League experience, nearly had a nuclear meltdown as he plunked Victor Caratini, narrowly avoided a pitch clock violation, couldn’t hear the PitchCom through the Houstonian crowd noise, and allowed consecutive singles to Jeremy Peña and Mauricio Dubón to load the bases. Astros manager Joe Espada then pulled his bench’s power-hitting lever by pinch hitting Jon Singleton for Chas McCormick with the bags full and nobody out. After Singleton took a very healthy rip at an early-count pitch, which he fouled back, he hit a well-struck grounder to a diving Spencer Torkelson whose on-target, one-hop throw to the plate was bobbled by the usually sure-handed catcher Jake Rogers.
SINGLETON TIES IT UP WITH A RBI SINGLE! 0 OUTS, BASES LOADED FOR THE ASTROS IN THE BOTTOM OF THE 7TH!
Not only had the Astros scored, but the Tigers had failed to notch an out, and suddenly the top of Houston’s order was due to hit with the bases still juiced. Altuve hit a fairly shallow fly ball into foul territory along the right field line, where Matt Vierling caught it. The right fielder seemed surprised that Peña made an aggressive attempt to score, and his rather lackadaisical throw home was barely too late to snare Peña. Houston took a 2–1 lead.
With the Tigers seemingly flailing and Tucker and Alvarez due up, Hinch removed Jobe (who seemed miffed at Vierling’s effort on the prior play as he left the field) in favor of sinker/slider lefty Sean Guenther, who got Tucker to ground into an inning-ending double play to keep the Tigers within single-swing striking distance.
To say the Tigers responded to the lead change in the eighth would be an understatement. Houston bullpen fixture Ryan Pressly came in to relieve Bryan Abreu, who bussed Brown’s table in the sixth and worked an easy seventh. Pressly quickly surrendered two singles, threw a wild pitch that allowed the tying run to score, and then walked Colt Keith. Espada then pulled the ripcord on Pressly and inserted closer Josh Hader. Hader walked Torkelson to load the bases and then Andy Ibáñez — pinch-hitting for Zach McKinstry — cleared them with a three-run double hooked into the left field corner.
The Tigers were back on top, 5–2, and they didn’t look back. Guenther worked the eighth and Will Vest, who ripped the sleeves off the bottom of Houston’s lineup across 1 2/3 dominant innings in Game 1, shut the door in the ninth to send the Tigers to the ALDS.
This postseason series win is the Tigers’ first since 2013, when the team was managed by Hall of Famer Jim Leyland and a carton of cigarettes. They have two off days before Saturday’s Game 1 tilt with the division rival Guardians in Cleveland. Right-hander Tanner Bibee, who has a 4.50 ERA and a 1.04 WHIP across 22 innings in his four starts against the Tigers this year, will start for the Guardians. Reese Olson, who was rostered for the Wild Card series but did not pitch, is the presumptive Game 1 starter for Detroit.
Houston’s season ends earlier than it has in any year since 2016, the last time the team failed to make the playoffs. The Astros had advanced to the ALCS in each of the past seven seasons, a borderline dynastic stretch for the franchise. Through that perspective, getting knocked out by the Tigers in the Wild Card Series is a major disappointment. However, at a certain point earlier this year, it would have been considered a miracle for this team to make the postseason at all. The Astros got here despite a glacial start to their season and several key injuries to their pitching staff. Those injuries may impact next year, too, as the timing of Cristian Javier’s and Luis Garcia’s Tommy John surgeries have them on pace for a mid- to late-season return rather than in early 2025.
Additionally, third baseman Alex Bregman, who was Houston’s best player in these two playoff games, hits free agency this offseason. With several highly paid Astros coming off the books (most notably Justin Verlander who didn’t pitch enough for his $40 million option to vest), the team has room to sign Bregman. That said, Tucker and Framber Valdez are both entering their third year of arbitration, and their futures with the club might be impacted by what happens with Bregman. Whatever happens, the Astros may not look the same for too much longer.
A day after Jared Goff was perfect on Monday Night Football — the Detroit Lions quarterback went 18-for-18 with a pair of touchdown passes — Tarik Skubal was simply very good, though that was enough for the Tigers to win the opener of their best-of-three Wild Card series against the Houston Astros. In a game the team probably needed to win — losing with their ace on the mound would have put the Cinderella club squarely behind the eight ball — Skubal threw six scoreless innings to help lead Detroit to a 3-1 win.
He obviously didn’t do it alone. A.J. Hinch’s mix-and-match bullpen threw the most innings in the majors this season, and they sealed the deal against a normally potent Houston lineup. The unheralded yet talented quartet of Will Vest, Tyler Holton, Jason Foley, and Beau Brieske combined to hold the lead — albeit not without a white-knuckle scare in the ninth. As for Detroit’s hitters, they didn’t exactly knock down the fences, but they scored enough to support the hurlers. Read the rest of this entry »
Now that Detroit’s magical run through the end of the regular season is complete, snapping a decade-long postseason drought, the Tigers have been rewarded with a first-round matchup against the formidable Astros. Not only will this be the first postseason meeting between these two franchises, it’ll be an October reunion of sorts between Detroit manager A.J. Hinch and the ballclub he led to two World Series appearances and one championship, before he was fired in the aftermath of the Astros’ sign-stealing scandal. Houston has been an October staple since 2015 and will be attempting to reach its eighth straight ALCS.
This isn’t a classic David and Goliath story, however. These two teams have been the best in the American League since the beginning of July, though the Tigers aren’t exactly structured like a traditional juggernaut, and the Astros aren’t as strong as they have been in recent seasons. Houston has plenty of postseason experience up and down its roster, but Detroit is young and essentially playing with house money after its surprising playoff berth.
ALWC Preview: Tigers vs. Astros
Overview
Tigers
Astros
Edge
Batting (wRC+)
95 (11th in AL)
111 (3rd in AL)
Astros
Fielding (FRV)
28 (5th)
-2 (10th)
Tigers
Starting Pitching (FIP-)
88 (1st)
98 (6th)
Tigers
Bullpen (FIP-)
95 (5th)
101 (10th)
Tigers
The Tigers’ surge to the playoffs was almost entirely driven by their pitching staff. Since July 1, they’ve had the second-best run prevention unit in the majors, allowing just 3.58 runs per game. This is despite the fact that they traded away Jack Flaherty, their second-best starter over the first four months of the season, at the deadline, when they were 6.5 games out of the final Wild Card spot with 2.8% playoff odds. Over the two months since then, Detroit essentially has turned to a two-man rotation, with the other three slots being covered by a rotating cast of openers and bulk relievers. It’s been unorthodox to say the least, but you can’t argue with the results.
Of course, it helps that the Tigers have the odds-on favorite to win the AL Cy Young award leading their pitching staff. Tarik Skubal has ascended into the stratosphere this year, winning the pitching Triple Crown and leading all American League pitchers in WAR. The Tigers will hand the ball to Skubal in Game 1, which might be the only traditional start the Astros see in this series.
The pitching plan for Games 2 and 3 is a complete mystery, one that Hinch seems to be relishing. “I’m going to try to keep everybody guessing just as much as I have with you guys for the last two months,” Hinch told reporters over the weekend. Keider Montero was the other traditional starter the Tigers leaned on during the past two months, but he doesn’t fit the profile of a big-game starter. It’s possible they’ll turn to Reese Olson in one of these games, but he hasn’t pitched past the fourth inning in any of his three starts since returning from a shoulder injury a few weeks ago. That means it could come down to the same opener-bulk strategy that’s been so successful over the last few months, with unsung heroes Brant Hurter or Ty Madden getting an opportunity to make an impact on the biggest stage.
There’s also the question of how the Tigers are going to deploy Jackson Jobe, their top pitching prospect. They called him up during the final week of the regular season, and he made two appearances out of the bullpen, including a three-inning outing on Saturday. It’s unclear if they trust him enough to hand him an actual start during this series, but he should see some action at some point, even if it’s as a bulk reliever.
And then there’s the rest of the Detroit bullpen. Beyond the team’s gaggle of long relievers, there’s a ton of depth to cover the later innings. That’s a huge reason why the Tigers were so successful down the stretch. And it’s not like their bullpen is stacked with big names; instead, it’s guys like Jason Foley (3.15 ERA), Tyler Holton (2.19), Beau Brieske (3.59), and Will Vest (2.82) getting deployed interchangeably in high-leverage situations.
Offensively, the Tigers rely heavily on just a handful of key contributors and have had a couple of guys get hot over the last two months to help fuel their postseason run.
Since returning from the injured list in early August, Parker Meadows has been one of the best outfielders in baseball. He’s slashed .291/.333/.500 over the last two months and played great defense in center, helping him accumulate 2.1 WAR during that timeframe, the 18th best mark in all of baseball. Both Kerry Carpenter and Riley Greene have been solid contributors throughout the season when they’ve been healthy, and both were activated off the IL in August to help Detroit’s playoff push. And Spencer Torkelson has finished the season strong after getting sent down to the minors in June. Since he was recalled in mid-August, Torkelson is batting .248/.338/.444 with six home runs and a 125 wRC+.
For the Astros, the biggest lingering question is the availability of Yordan Alvarez. He injured his knee sliding into second base on September 22 and has been sidelined since then. He’s expected to take some batting practice on Monday, which could be a good sign for his recovery, but his knees have given him trouble for much of his career, and I’d expect the Astros to be cautious with him.
Even without the big man anchoring their lineup, Houston has plenty of firepower to deploy, all coming from the usual suspects. Kyle Tucker missed a couple of months of the season due to a fractured shin, but he was in the middle of a career year before that injury and picked up right where he left off when he returned at the beginning of September. Jose Altuve is on the downswing of his career, but he’s still a potent table-setter atop the lineup, and Alex Bregman has rebounded nicely from a slow start to the season. Yainer Diaz has been fantastic in his first full season as Houston’s starting catcher, so much so that even on some of the days that he didn’t catch, the Astros used him at first base to keep his bat in the lineup regularly.
Unlike the Tigers, the Astros boast a traditional, playoff-tested rotation that they’ll need to lean into during this short series. Don’t mind their full-season stats listed in the table up top; since June 1, Houston starters have had the second-best ERA in the majors (3.31) and the fifth-best FIP (3.73). Framber Valdez will take the ball in Game 1; he had a 1.96 ERA across his 12 starts (78 innings) during the second half of the season. Next up will be Yusei Kikuchi Houston’s big trade deadline acquisition. He’s been absolutely phenomenal since switching teams thanks to some pitch mix adjustments and a honed attack plan for his slider. He’s struck out nearly a third of the batters he’s faced since joining the Astros while keeping his walk rate under control.
If the series goes to Game 3, Hunter Brown should get the call, something no one could have expected after he started off the year with a 9.78 ERA through his first six starts of the season. After adding a sinker to his repertoire in May, he lowered his ERA to 3.49 by the end of the year. Perhaps surprisingly, Justin Verlanderisn’t an option to make a start during this series, though he could be called on in the Division Series should the Astros advance.
Houston’s bullpen has nearly as many high-quality options as Detroit’s does, but the top Astros relievers are far more battle tested. Josh Hader was the big offseason signing, and he’s been solid, if a little shaky, as the primary closer; a bout of homeritis drove his FIP higher than it’s ever been in a full season (excluding 2020). The former closer Ryan Pressly and flame-throwing Bryan Abreu make a formidable setup duo, and Héctor Neris, claimed off the garbage heap in August, gives Houston four high-leverage arms with plenty of playoff experience.
Having gone around the horn and then some to identify the strongest players at each position among the remaining contenders in the National and American Leagues, I’ve turned to the weakest ones, with the NL slate running yesterday. This is something of an offshoot of my annual Replacement Level Killers series, and in fact, even some confirmed October participants have spots that still fit the bill as true lineup sinkholes, only this time with no trade deadline to help fill them. For this, I’m considering full-season performance but with an eye to who’s best or worst now, with injuries and adjustments in mind. Unlike the Killers series, I’m also considering pitching, with the shortening of rotations and bullpens factoring into my deliberations.
Until now, the pool of teams I’ve considered has consisted of eight clubs in the American League and seven in the National League. On Thursday, we officially lost the Mariners, who were mathematically eliminated with wins by the Royals and Tigers. What’s more, the Twins stand on the brink of elimination — they own the head-to-head tiebreakers with both the Tigers and Royals, but are three games back with three to play — so I’ve opted to exclude them here.
For this installment, I’ll highlight the biggest trouble spots from among an AL field that still includes the Yankees (who clinched the AL East on Thursday), Guardians, Astros, Orioles, Royals, and Tigers. Read the rest of this entry »
With the playoff fields in both leagues nearly set, we here at FanGraphs are turning our focus to how teams set up for October. Jay Jaffe has covered the best playersat each position among the contenders, with a run down of the worst positions in each league still to come. Dan Szymborski looked into the particulars of playoff lineup construction. Inspired by Meg Rowley, I’m taking a different tack: I’m looking for the players, strategies, and matchups that could be the difference between success and failure for each team.
We already know who the best players in baseball are, and they will of course be hugely important in the postseason. But less heralded players frequently have a lot to say about who takes home the World Series trophy. Think Steve Pearce and David Freese lengthening their respective lineups to turn those offenses from good to great, or the Braves bullpen mowing down the opposition in 2021. (On the flip side, you don’t hear a lot about teams let down by their supporting casts, because they mostly lose early on.) The best players aren’t always the most pivotal. In that spirit, I went through each team and focused on one potential pivot point. I’m looking at the American League today, with the National League to follow tomorrow.
New York Yankees: Austin Wells, Jazz Chisholm Jr., and Giancarlo Stanton
It’s not hard to come up with a game plan against the Yankees offense. It involves putting giant red boxes around Aaron Judge and Juan Soto, who have been the two best hitters in baseball this year, and writing “don’t let these guys beat us” in bold lettering beneath those boxes. The Yankees have the best wRC+ in baseball, all while their non-Judge/non-Soto hitters have combined for a 93 wRC+, the rough equivalent of the Washington Nationals. Sure, every team would be worse without its two best hitters, but not this much worse. Every pitcher who faces New York will have spent the vast majority of their preparation time looking at Judge and Soto, and building everything around that.
The easiest way to overcome Soto and Judge is to avoid them. I don’t mean intentionally walking them every time, though I’m sure Judge will receive his fair share of free passes. But teams will try to get those two to chase and avoid giving in even when behind in the count against them, which will result in plenty of walks the natural way. There’s going to be a ton of traffic on the bases for the team’s number four hitter, either Austin Wells or Jazz Chisholm Jr./Giancarlo Stanton depending on the matchup.
Wells has hit a rookie wall in the last month, with an 18 wRC+ in the last 30 days. Righties have simplified their attack against him, hammering the zone with fastballs and then aiming sliders at his back foot. This feels like the kind of slump that’s part fatigue and part adjusting to the majors. Wells hasn’t been aggressive enough on early-count fastballs (his swing rate on in-zone fastballs in the first two pitches of an at-bat has fallen from 64% to 54%), and so pitchers are taking the invitation to get ahead. Given how many runners tend to be on base in front of him, that approach will probably continue. It’s up to him to make opposing pitchers reconsider.
Chisholm and Stanton have split reps as the Judge follower with a lefty on the mound, and I’m not sure who will end up with the job. Like Wells, Chisholm has been too passive on early-count fastballs in his protection role, and he’s getting some tough counts and chase pitches as a reward. Still, I’m more optimistic about his outlook than Wells’. Chisholm might be taking fewer swings at crushable pitches, but he’s laying off tough breaking balls too, so it feels like part of a coordinated approach designed to minimize bad swings, and I don’t see an obvious plan of attack here for opposing lefties.
Pitchers attack Stanton high in the zone, where he’s prone to swinging under well-located fastballs. It’s a carnival game, almost: hit the brass ring on the high inside corner, and you’ll win a strikeout. Miss low, and you might surrender a home run. I expect the Yankees to deploy Stanton against pitchers who are less comfortable up in the zone, while Chisholm gets the nod against four-seam specialists.
How these three are able to respond to opposing game plans will go a long way towards deciding the Yankees’ fate this October. It’s a self-reinforcing cycle, too; if these four-spot hitters struggle, teams will naturally become more and more cautious with Soto and Judge, giving more opportunities to the guys behind them. If the four-hole hitters start to click, avoiding the two in front of them becomes less palatable.
Cleveland Guardians: Joey Cantillo and Matthew Boyd
The Guardians have used a simple blueprint to storm to one of the best records in the AL: timely hitting, great defense, and a lockdown bullpen. That’s how you end up with 90-plus wins despite a bottom-five starting rotation, one that looked sketchy heading into the year and lost Shane Bieber almost immediately. Tanner Bibee has been great, and Alex Cobb has been effective when not injured, but the spots after that are up for grabs.
In the past month or so, Joey Cantillo and Matthew Boyd have been the best options. Cantillo, in particular, has shown huge swing-and-miss upside, and he’s done it by using his best pitch, a changeup, more than a third of the time. He still has a fastball-heavy approach, and that pitch is probably his worst, but I expect that to change somewhat in the playoffs. With more off days and more bullpen availability overall, I think the Guardians will ask Cantillo to focus on his changeup and curveball, cut down on fastballs, and pitch twice through the order at max effort. He’s been intermittently great at doing just that, and when he’s on, the Guardians might not need to score much to win.
Boyd joined the Guardians when they were desperate for innings, and he’s been a pleasant second-half surprise. Still, I’m a lot less convinced by his performance than Cantillo’s. Call it the “new is always better” effect, because I’ve seen plenty of Boyd starts over the years and feel like I know what I’m getting at this point. That said, if he can put up average results in a five-and-dive role, the Guardians’ outlook will improve greatly. Their biggest weakness is always going to be the rotation, but Boyd and Cantillo have been great of late, and the rotation has actually been in the top half of baseball in the last month. For one of the weakest offenses in the AL field, improved run prevention would be a huge boon.
Houston Astros: Framber Valdez
The Astros look like a mirror image of the Guardians in a lot of ways. Despite adding Josh Hader, their bullpen has been a weakness thanks to a combination of injuries and regression. The defense isn’t great. But between resurgent bats and a few great starters, they’re putting up early runs and giving their bullpen enough cushion to make things work. Their second-half surge has been keyed by starting pitching in general, and by Framber Valdez in particular.
Valdez had been quietly bad for about a year by the time this All-Star break rolled around. From July 15, 2023 through July 15, 2024, he compiled a 4.13 ERA and 4.01 FIP. He’s always relied on producing a huge number of grounders, but changes in his fastball shape eroded that edge last summer, and it took him quite a while to adjust his game accordingly. His solution has been simple: use his best pitch more frequently. Valdez’s curveball is one of the best in the game, and he’s leaning on it:
More curveballs, more whiffs, more strikeouts, plummeting ERA — he looks like a whole new Valdez. He’s even getting more grounders again, at least partially because hitters are forced to look for the curveball more often and take emergency swings against sinkers. He’s been one of the best starters in the game over the past few months. That’s mostly what people already thought of Valdez – the top starter on a top team – but for a minute there, it wasn’t quite true. Now he looks dominant again, and he’s pitching deep into games too; he’s pitched into the seventh inning in six of his last 10 starts. The Astros could use that combination of length and quality, because if they’re going deep into their bullpen, things could get ugly.
Baltimore Orioles: Jordan Westburg
These don’t all have to be complicated. When Jordan Westburg broke his hand on July 31, the Orioles were a game back of the best record in baseball. Since then, they’ve gone 22-26, and his replacements haven’t impressed. Jackson Holliday hasn’t exactly replicated his nightmare April call-up, but he has a 70 wRC+ since returning to the majors. Emmanuel Rivera has been hitting well, but he’s more of a utility infielder/platoon piece than an everyday starter. Westburg’s presence means that Baltimore’s lineup makes sense; it felt stretched when he was out.
Broken hands are notoriously difficult injuries to forecast. Sometimes recovery is swift and complete. Sometimes power is slow to come back even as everything else rebounds. There’s no strict timeline; we simply don’t know how he’ll look. There’s also the matter of rust. After a brief rehab stint, the O’s activated Westburg over the weekend, but that still means only having about a week to get back up to major league conditioning and form before the games start to count.
Plenty of Baltimore’s hitters have had power outages in the second half — it’s not like you can pin the team’s entire swoon on Westburg’s absence. Adley Rutschman, in particular, looks worn down to me, and Anthony Santander and Ryan O’Hearn have cooled off. But Westburg’s return is a huge potential boost. If he’s back to his former self, the lineup gets scary to navigate. If he’s still not 100%, the other options aren’t amazing. Keep your eyes out to see how he handles inside fastballs, often a tough pitch to deal with if your hand is still hurt.
Detroit Tigers: Performance Against Good Fastballs
The Tigers seem to have worked out a good plan on the pitching front: Let Tarik Skubal cook, and fill in everything else with bullpen innings. But that’s only half the equation. They need to score runs, too, and that’s been a challenge this year. They’ve scored the fewest runs of any potential playoff team, and it’s not fluky; they have the worst wRC+ of the bunch, and they’re in the middle of the pack when it comes to baserunning.
To make matters worse, the Tigers have been especially weak against good fastballs. Only five teams in baseball have done worse against fastballs 96 mph and above this year: the Rockies, White Sox, Blue Jays, Marlins, and Rays. (They’re also bad against fastballs 95 and above, to be clear – 96 just feels like the new definition of “hard fastball” as velo keeps creeping up.) That’s not good company to keep, and the playoffs are chock full of hard fastballs. In the 2023 regular season, 10.4% of all pitches were fastballs thrown 96 mph or harder. In the playoffs, that crept up to 15.5%. Teams with hard-throwing relievers make the playoffs more often, and they also use their best relievers more while asking their starters to throw harder in shorter bursts in October. If you’re weak against velocity, teams will come after you.
Spencer Torkelson has had well-publicized struggles against hard stuff. Matt Vierling, Jace Jung, and Trey Sweeney, all of whom will start plenty in the playoffs, have looked overmatched this year against very good heaters. Kerry Carpenter and Colt Keith are doing damage against them, so look for opponents to attack the lefty-heavy heart of the Detroit lineup (Carpenter, Keith, and Riley Greene) with secondary-heavy lefties and then bring the thunder against everyone else. The Tigers are going to see a lot of fast pitches in the strike zone. If they can’t handle them, it might make for a short October run. If they can, their offense will surprise to the upside.
Kansas City Royals: GB/FB Ratio Allowed
The Royals are one of the best defensive teams in baseball, and the eye test and defensive models agree. But while the Bobby Witt Jr.-led infield is outstanding, the outfield is more of a mixed bag. Center fielder Kyle Isbel has been great in 2024, but he’s not getting much help. Tommy Pham is a hair below average in right, hardly surprising given that he’s 36. MJ Melendez is one of the worst defensive outfielders in baseball. Isbel covers so much ground that he can make up for some shortcomings, but one man can only run so fast. Think of it this way: Per Statcast, Kansas City’s infield defense has been 31 outs above average. Their outfielders have been three outs above average, and that’s with Garrett Hampson putting in solid work in left when Melendez isn’t available. The Royals’ preferred lineup is light on outfield defense, in other words.
The Royals pitching staff isn’t particularly focused on grounders, though. They’re in the middle of the pack when it comes to GB/FB ratio, and Brady Singer is the only one of their playoff starters who effectively keeps the ball on the ground. Opposing teams will be looking to elevate against the Royals, keeping the ball away from Witt’s all-encompassing glove. That might go double in Kansas City, where Kauffman Stadium’s cavernous confines mean that balls in the gap can travel a long way. Isbel is so good that he can cover for some of the corner deficiencies, but if the Royals’ opponents can pepper the pull side in the air, Kansas City’s defensive excellence will be blunted.
Minnesota Twins: Bridge Relievers
Let’s throw in the Twins as a bonus, even though they’re out of playoff position at the moment. They’re two back in the loss column with four left to play, which doesn’t leave them much margin for error. On the bright side, though, they hold the tiebreaker over both the Royals and Tigers, which gives them an outside chance at sneaking into the field if either of their divisional rivals hits a banana peel in the last series of the year. We give them a 22.8% chance of making the playoffs, which feels like enough of a shot to include in this article.
The business end of the Minnesota bullpen is fearsome. Jhoan Duran isn’t having his best season, but he’s clearly one of the better closers in the game. Griffin Jax has been outstanding. He has five plus pitches and is commanding them well, absolutely overwhelming opponents in the process. He might end up as the most valuable reliever in baseball this year when you consider volume, leverage, and results.
Should the Twins make the postseason, Duran and Jax are going to be very busy. But they can’t pitch all of the relief innings, and the guys behind them are question marks. Louie Varland has a 5.79 FIP (don’t even ask about the ERA, it’s ugly) and is coming into bigger spots than any Minnesota reliever aside from the top duo. Cole Sands has had an up-and-down season, and we consider him their secondary setup man after Jax. Scott Blewett and Ronny Henriquez have seen their strikeout rates plummet to borderline unplayable levels. Caleb Thielbar is dancing on a knife’s edge between effectively wild and unable to find the zone.
To be clear, this isn’t a case of an unfixably bad unit. I think Thielbar is an impact lefty when he’s right. Varland has premium stuff. Henriquez’s changeup is a weapon. Starting with Duran and Jax is a huge tailwind. It isn’t hard to imagine a world where some of the bullpen options pop and the Twins suddenly have a dominant relief corps.
But that hasn’t happened this year. Minnesota’s bullpen is playing its worst baseball of the season over the past few weeks – they have a 4.80 ERA even with the two top options taken into account, and a 5.33 without them. The middle innings are feeling shakier than ever, and that’s particularly concerning given that the starting rotation has been covering fewer innings since Joe Ryan hit the IL. If this group rises to the occasion, the Twins will look like a completely different team than they have so far this September. But, uh, that’s kind of the problem: Right now they don’t look very good.
With just 10 days left to go in the regular season, four teams — the Brewers, Dodgers, Guardians, and Yankees — have clinched playoff berths, and while just one division race has been decided, only two others have even a faint pulse. There’s still plenty of drama to be had with regards to the Wild Card races, which essentially boil down to a pair of four-to-make-three scenarios; Seattle might have been a stronger fifth in the AL if certain Mariners who reached third base didn’t insist upon taking very strangewalkabouts. Beyond that, it’s also worth checking in on the jockeying for position to claim the first-round byes that go to the top two teams in each league.
Once upon a time, this space would be filled with my reintroducing readers to the concept of Team Entropy, but through the 2022 Collective Bargaining Agreement, Major League Baseball and the players’ union traded the potential excitement and scheduling mayhem created by on-field tiebreakers and sudden-death games in exchange for a larger inventory of playoff games. The 12-team, two-bye format was designed to reward the top two teams by allowing them to bypass the possibility of being eliminated in best-of-three series. So far, however, things haven’t worked out that way, because outcomes in a best-of-five series are only slightly more predictable than those of a best-of-three.
In fact, the National League teams who have received byes under the newish system have lost all four Division Series since, two apiece by the Dodgers and Braves. The 111-win Dodgers were ousted by an 89-win Padres team in 2022, and then last year’s 100-win team was knocked off by the 84-win Diamondbacks. In 2022, the 101-win Braves fell to an 87-win Phillies team, and last year, after winning 104 games in the regular season, Atlanta once again was eliminated by a Philadelphia club that had finished 14 games behind the Braves in the standings. American League bye teams have had more success, going 3-1, with last year’s 90-win Rangers beating the 101-win Orioles for the lone upset. The Astros have taken care of business in both years, with their 106-win club sweeping the 90-win Mariners in 2022 and their 90-win team beating the 87-win Twins last year. Read the rest of this entry »
It’s entirely possible, dear sir, that I simply misheard you given the permeating hubbub in this, our fair city’s modern-day Colosseum, but just a moment ago I was left with the odd impression that you might have pronounced me out. At the risk of contravening such an esteemed authority as yourself, I aver that I must have misheard you, owing to the fact it surely was clear to one and all that the only sensible course of action under a circumstance such as this one would be to adjudge the ball foul. The only fair call is a foul ball (if you’ll forgive the indulgence), but as I say, these ears love nothing so much as to play their little tricks on me from time to time, so if the issue at hand is a simple case of misapprehension, then simply say the word and off I’ll scurry. It would be my genuine pleasure to gather my lumber, as it were, and assume once more the ready position here in the right-hand rectangle, for I do adore a tussle. Read the rest of this entry »
Justin Verlander did not have a good night on Sunday against the Diamondbacks in Houston. The 41-year-old future Hall of Famer retired just nine of the 19 batters he faced, allowing eight runs in three innings in one of the worst starts of his 19-year career — and not an isolated one, either, as he’s been struggling since returning from his second stint on the injured list. For as difficult as it is to believe, even in a rotation that’s been beset by injuries this year, Verlander might not be one of the Astros’ starters when the playoffs roll around.
At Minute Maid Park on Sunday evening, Verlander worked a scoreless first inning, getting ahead of all four hitters he faced and allowing just one baserunner; he hit Joc Pederson on the left leg with a two-out, two-strike curveball. His second and third innings were another story, however, as he allowed seven runs on a pair of homers by Pavin Smith, and, well, you can do the math as to the traffic that preceded them.
Struggling to command his fastball and not fooling anyone with his secondaries, Verlander netted just four swings and misses from among his 75 pitches, all on his four-seamer, and got just six called strikes from his curve, slider, and changeup combined (18% CSW%). For just the fifth time in 523 career starts and the first time since July 2, 2017, he didn’t strike out a single hitter. The eight runs he allowed were one short of his career high, set on April 15, 2017; he hadn’t allowed exactly eight runs since June 26, 2016. Read the rest of this entry »
The NFL season kicks off tonight, with another game tomorrow, 13 more on Sunday, and a Monday Night Football matchup set to cap off the Week One slate. Millions will be tuning in, although not everyone will be able to watch their favorite team (or keep close tabs on their fantasy football squad). Among those missing out will be the vast majority of big leaguers. At the same time that pigskin luminaries like Lamar Jackson and Patrick Mahomes are performing on the gridiron, major leaguers will be plying their trade on the baseball diamond. When you’re a professional athlete, forgoing other pastimes — watching other sports is but one of many — comes with the territory.
What is it like to miss out on things you’d be enjoying were it not for your responsibilities as a ballplayer? I asked several big league players for their perspectives on that very subject. Here is what they had to say.
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George Springer, Toronto Blue Jays outfielder: “I wouldn’t ever say ‘Why do I have to play today?’ but I love football. I’m a big football fan. When the NFL gets going, and college football gets going, it’s exciting for me. A lot of it is just a break from the constant everyday grind of baseball, having a chance to go to an NFL game, to a hockey game, to a concert. Anything like that. Read the rest of this entry »
Lucas Erceg’s story is fairly well known. A position player for his first seven professional seasons, the 2014 second-round draft pick converted to the mound in 2021 and went on to make his big-league debut last May after being traded from the Milwaukee Brewers to the Oakland Athletics. The transition has been a resounding success. Now with the Royals — Kansas City acquired the 29-year-old right-hander at last month’s trade deadline — Erceg has eight saves to go with a 3.40 ERA, a 2.87 FIP, and a 27.3% strikeout rate over 50-and-a-third innings on the season.
Pitching and hitting are different animals, and that includes the data and technology used to help hone one’s craft at the professional level. With that in mind, I asked Erceg if the degree to which he is analytically-inclined has changed along with his job description.
“I’ve always been kind of minimal with that” Erceg told me prior to a game at Detroit’s Comerica Park. “I think the more I start to look at numbers, and hyper-focus on what they are telling me, the more I’ll overcorrect instead of just making those day-to-day progressions.”
Erceg feels that he was guilty of overcorrecting during his hitting days down on the farm. Looking back, he realizes that he was prone to listening to too many voices, and as a result ended up “kind of bouncing around from idea to idea, never finding consistency.” The potential — especially in the power department — was there, but he ultimately stalled out developmentally as a slugger. In his final season as a position player, Erceg slashed .219/.305/.398 in Triple-A.
