Wednesday night had just about everything you could want in a baseball game. Game 2 is on the list, somewhere, of greatest World Series games in history.

There were dramatic swings in win probability in the late innings for each the Astros and Dodgers. Some of the game’s greatest stars produced signature moments. There was Yasiel Puig being Yasiel Puig, licking his bat and slamming his glove after nearly completing a five-star catch. There was the bill of Chris Taylor’s cap perhaps saving a run early. There was Justin Verlander returning from the visiting clubhouse to the dugout to implore his team to do something. There was this generation’s Rivera, Kenley Jansen, enduring a rare misstep. There was poor Josh Fields. There was a rare test of roster depth, with Austin Barnes becoming the first player to appear at catcher and second base in a World Series game.

Read the rest of this entry »

My father’s an avid tennis player, and there’s this thing he says anytime — or, because he’s a dad, precisely every time — he mis-hits a ball for an accidental winner. “Welp, I paid for the whole racquet,” is what he says. It’s a goofy way of acknowledging some good fortune, of apologizing for having benefited from something other than one’s actual skill.

The Los Angeles Dodgers pay Chris Taylor mostly for what he does with his bat and his glove and legs. But they employ the whole Chris Taylor. And while there was no reason to care about it before last night, one is compelled to acknowledge today that the whole Chris Taylor includes Chris Taylor’s ball cap.

Here’s why that’s relevant. With one out, runners on first and third, and the scored tied at 0-0, Houston’s Alex Bregman hit a liner to center field. What happened next actually kinda did shock everyone.

For those who haven’t fully pivoted to video, the footage above depicts center fielder Chris Taylor diving for Bregman’s liner, missing Bregman’s liner, and then somehow deflecting Bregman’s liner to left fielder Joc Pederson by means of his hat. While the base hit allowed Josh Reddick to score from third, the ricochet to Pederson forced George Springer to stop at second, limiting Bregman to a single. Rich Hill would strike out the next two batters. No further runs would score.

Read the rest of this entry »

Well, that was one of the craziest baseball games anyone has ever seen. A would-be triple that hit the bill of Chris Taylor’s cap and then bounced right to Joc Pederson, a pickoff at second base that looked like Laz Diaz got challenged to an impromptu game of dodgeball, and finally, an extra inning home run derby led to a 7-6 Astros victory, tying the series at one game apiece. If we get any more baseball games like that one, this series will be a classic.

But before most of those crazy things happened, Dave Roberts made a decision that seemingly set the wheels in motion. In the top of the fifth inning, the Dodgers’ manager summoned Kenta Maeda from the bullpen to take over for Rich Hill.

Read the rest of this entry »

This World Series has been dubbed a clash of analytical titans. Whatever the outcome, it would appear already to be a victory for the movement and an argument for greater investment in decision-science departments.

The Dodgers have one of the largest research departments in the game — perhaps the largest, though there isn’t a publicly available database for full accounting. The Astros have also benefited greatly from analytics, as we know. It’s possible that the two organizations have distanced themselves from much of the pack in a sport where every team has some sort of investment in statistically based R&D.

Nor is this development lost on the players. Consider left-hander Tony Watson’s comments from a recent piece by Bill Plunkett of the Orange County Register.

“Just the sheer numbers as far as the bodies, the staff that is analytically-driven,” says Dodgers reliever Tony Watson who spent 6-1/2 seasons with the analytically-open Pittsburgh Pirates before joining the Dodgers this summer. “Then I later found out it’s the largest R & D in baseball. … Coming from Pittsburgh, it’s definitely bigger. That’s the focus. And it works. The numbers don’t lie.”

The Pirates have made a sizable investment in their analytics department. According to Watson, however, it’s overshadowed by the group assembled by Los Angeles. Once a tool for low-revenue teams, it’s become another area where large-market clubs can outspend and outinvest their opponents. It’s a troubling development for the league’s minnows: the richest teams are now also the smartest.

I bring all this up to establish that, if any club is capable of idenitfying the weaknesses and strengths of an opponent, it’s the Dodgers. They know what all the Astros do well and what they don’t.

Read the rest of this entry »

Last year’s World Series featured a true face-off between big and small markets, pitting the high-revenue Chicago Cubs against the lower-revenue Cleveland Indians. The difference in each club’s markets materialized in their respective payrolls: Chicago outspent Cleveland by roughly $90 million in 2016. The contrast was stark.

This year’s Series represents a different kind of contrast. Everyone’s aware of the Dodgers’ financial might, of course, but the Astros enjoy a large market, too. And even if that hasn’t been obvious recently, the club’s payrolls from a dozen years ago reflect the club’s spending capacities. Over the last decade, however, the team has executed a massive tank-job and also navigated difficulties with their gigantic television deal. The result? Dramatically lower payrolls. The rebuild has worked, however, and the club’s payroll has nearly doubled in just the last two years. However, that payroll is still in the bottom half of baseball and represents only half of the Dodgers’ expenditures in what is the largest disparity in World Series history.

I would be remiss when discussing the disparity between the two teams not to mention that the gap between the clubs’ payrolls is much more modest when comparing only active rosters. Carl Crawford has been gone from the roster for quite some time, but his $22 million salary is still on the books. Scott Kazmir is hurt. Adrian Gonzalez is in Italy. Those three account for around $60 million in salary alone. A handful of other players are no longer on the team. As a result, the Dodgers’ 25-man World Series roster is earning “only” $143 million. Even with all the money the Dodgers have written off, they still have an active roster that would place them in the top half of MLB payrolls. As for the Astros, their World Series roster comes in at around $115 million.

Read the rest of this entry »

Justin Turner refused to be fooled a third time by Dallas Keuchel in Game 1 of the World Series. He made an equipment change after a strikeout and a pop out, and was ready for the pitcher’s final attempt to go to the well. That go-ahead two-run home run in the sixth serves to give us all a look inside the type of adjustments hitters have to make from at-bat to at-bat.

Read the rest of this entry »

Last night, the Dodgers’ domination of the postseason continued. Winning a World Series game by two runs isn’t exactly steamrolling your opponent, but given what Clayton Kershaw, Brandon Morrow, and Kenley Jansen did to the Astros offense, the game never really felt in doubt. Houston got their only run on an Alex Bregman solo home run and never really threatened again.

The rest of their offensive production consisted of a pair of singles, but neither runner would get past first base. The Astros didn’t put a single runner in scoring position all night long. There were no rallies, no trouble out of which a Dodger pitcher had to work. Just outs, and most of them quick outs.

It took Los Angeles just 107 pitches to face 30 batters. Usually, when you see low pitch counts and quick innings, it’s because a team was overly aggressive, swinging at pitches early in counts and making quick outs. In Game 1, though, the Astros seemingly made it easy on the Dodgers by just not swinging at strikes.

Read the rest of this entry »

People have spent a lot of time defending playoff Clayton Kershaw. This has taken place because other people have spent a lot of time attacking playoff Clayton Kershaw. To the defenders, Kershaw is anything but unclutch. He’s been a victim, a victim of randomness and a victim of sample size. To the attackers, Kershaw hasn’t shown up. Not often enough, not like normal, regular-season Clayton Kershaw. There’s that fact of the 4.40 playoff ERA. That’s where Kershaw was for his career when he woke up Tuesday morning. It’s a number that one could dismiss, but it’s not a number that one could deny. When Kershaw had pitched, there were too many runs. Forget about any weaknesses or character flaws. The argument against playoff Kershaw was simple. The stats were right there.

The Dodgers would tell you that Kershaw was redeemed in the 2016 NLDS. That’s when he came out of the bullpen on one day of rest to close out the Nationals. Kershaw himself wasn’t satisfied. There’s only one way for Kershaw to be satisfied — he needs to win the World Series. He’s internalized all the playoff runs he’s allowed. He’s tired of the frustration, and he’s tired of the defeats. There’s one thing to be done to put it all to rest. Win it all, and it’s all taken care of. The history could finally be buried and dead.

Kershaw hasn’t erased the history just yet. Not for himself. The World Series wasn’t decided by Tuesday’s Game 1. But in the biggest game Kershaw’s ever thrown, nearly every pitch was sharp, and the Astros could come up with no answer. Kershaw drove the critics backward, forcing them to wonder if maybe he’s no pumpkin after all. Kershaw struck out 11 Astros hitters. He became the first pitcher to do so all season long, and he needed only 83 pitches. In 11 previous playoff games, the Astros had struck out against the opposing starter just 35 times combined. Kershaw rendered the league-leading lineup helpless, yielding three hits and a run, without a single walk. Kershaw was Kershaw, on October 24.

Read the rest of this entry »

Jose Altuve is short. Relative to the standard major-league baseball player, Jose Altuve is a little man. You’ve heard about this. Very recently, you’ve heard about this! Jose Altuve is short. Aaron Judge is gigantic. The two just went head-to-head in the ALCS, and they’ll do it again a few weeks from now, when MVP voting results are released. Altuve was already an anomaly, by just getting to the majors in the first place. Then he became one of the most valuable players in the sport. Trod ground, yet fertile. It remains a challenging thing to fully appreciate.

Let’s talk about that shortness. What does it mean? Now that Altuve’s in the majors. Forget about scouting biases, or how hard it was for Altuve to get noticed. That’s all behind him. He’s clearly more than proven himself. He’s amazing! How, though, is his game different from the usual one? Every so often there might be a ground ball or liner that’s just out of Altuve’s reach. So it goes. But there’s also an effect on his hitting. Two effects, I suppose, one of which is obvious, and the other one less so.

Read the rest of this entry »

The final moments of preparation are underway as the Dodgers and Astros get ready for tonight’s Game 1 of the World Series. On the one hand, it represents baseball’s biggest stage. For the players, however, it’s also the game they’ve been playing forever. When it comes to getting ready, do they prepare like usual? Or is it a contest that requires greater planning than any other?

We went to the players (and a coach) to ask if their routines had been altered at all and if they’d been poring over the data before tonight’s game.

———

Dave Hudgens, Astros Hitting Coach: “I was thinking about that earlier in the day, and I was thinking, ‘I want to do the same thing everyday as I do for this game.’ That’s what I try to do. You don’t want to do anything different. Okay, now it’s important so I’m going to do more? I’m going to do the same thing, these guys are doing their same routine, going about their jobs the same way.

Read the rest of this entry »