The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2019 Hall of Fame ballot. Originally written for the 2015 election at SI.com, it has been updated to reflect recent voting results as well as additional research. For a detailed introduction to this year’s ballot, and other candidates in the series, use the tool above; an introduction to JAWS can be found here. For a tentative schedule and a chance to fill out a Hall of Fame ballot for our crowdsourcing project, see here. All WAR figures refer to the Baseball-Reference version unless otherwise indicated.

Wherever Gary Sheffield went, he made noise, both with his bat and his voice. For the better part of two decades, he ranked among the game’s most dangerous hitters, a slugger with a keen batting eye and a penchant for contact that belied his quick, violent swing. For even longer than that, he was one of the game’s most outspoken players, unafraid to speak up when he felt he was being wronged and unwilling to endure a situation that wasn’t to his liking. He was a polarizing player, and hardly one for the faint of heart.

At the plate, Sheffield was viscerally impressive like few others. With his bat twitching back and forth like the tail of a tiger waiting to pounce, he was pure menace in the batter’s box. He won a batting title, launched over 500 home runs — 14 seasons with at least 20 and eight with at least 30 — and put many a third base coach in peril with some of the most terrifying foul balls anyone has ever seen. For as violent as his swing may have been, it was hardly wild; not until his late thirties did he strike out more than 80 times in a season, and in his prime, he walked far more often than he struck out.

Off the field, Bill James once referred to Sheffield as “an urban legend in his own mind.” Sheffield found controversy before he ever reached the majors through his connection to his uncle, Dwight Gooden. He was drafted and developed by the Brewers, who had no idea how to handle such a volatile player and wound up doing far more harm than good. Small wonder then that from the time he was sent down midway through his rookie season after being accused of faking an injury, he was mistrustful of team management and wanted out. And when he wanted out — of Milwaukee, Los Angeles, or New York — he let you know it, and if a bridge had to burn, so be it; it was Festivus every day for Sheffield, who was always willing to air his grievances.

Later in his career, Sheffield became entangled in the BALCO performance enhancing drug scandal through his relationship with Barry Bonds — a relationship that by all accounts crumbled before he found himself in even deeper water. For all of the drama that surrounded Sheffield, and for all of his rage and outrageousness, he never burned out the way his uncle did, nor did he have trouble finding work.

Even in the context of the high-scoring era in which he played, Sheffield’s offensive numbers look to be Hall of Fame caliber, but voters have found plenty of reasons to overlook him, whether it’s his tangential connection to PEDs, his gift for finding controversy, his poor defensive metrics, or the crowd on the ballot. In his 2015 debut, he received just 11.7% of the vote, and in three years since, he’s actually lost a bit of ground, getting 11.1% in 2018. At this point, he’s more likely to fall off the ballot before his eligibility window expires than he is to reach 75% — a fate that, I must admit, surprises me.

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Please note, this posting contains two positions.

Position: Data Engineer

Overview
The Data Engineer will work closely with the Data Architect and the Baseball Systems team to maintain, enhance, and extend the Brewers data pipelines. You will be responsible for collecting and transforming data from various sources as well as preparing and distributing data for consumption by the department’s systems and analysts. The ideal candidate is an experienced data pipeline builder who excels at automating and optimizing data systems, with a strong preference for cloud experience.

Responsibilities
Essential Duties and Responsibilities include the following. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions. Other duties may be assigned.

• Create, maintain and optimize data ETL pipelines
• Document, troubleshoot, and resolve issues with data processes
• Collaborate with the development and research teams
• Extend the Brewers AWS cloud platform initiative
• Identify, design, and implement internal process improvements
• Work with stakeholders to utilize data to create innovative solutions to baseball operations problems
• Prepare data sets for processing and research

Qualifications
To perform this job successfully, an individual must be able to perform each essential duty satisfactorily. The requirements listed below are representative of the knowledge, skill, and/or ability required.

• Experience with programming languages such as Python, Java, C#
• Experience working with relational databases such as SQL Server and PostgreSQL
• Experience with SQL, including writing and maintaining queries
• Experience with SDLC, especially Agile or Kanban concepts
• Experience with source control and issue management, such as JIRA, Bitbucket, Github or similar
• Familiarity with advanced statistical baseball concepts, including advanced statistics and player evaluation metrics

Preferred skills
The skills listed below will help an individual perform the job, however they are not all required.

• Experience building visualizations with tools such as D3.js or similar
• Experience with data analysis tools including Tableau, Chartio or similar
• Experience with cloud services including AWS, Azure, Google Cloud or similar
• Experience with DevOps concepts such as Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment, using TeamCity, Jenkins or similar
• Experience with job orchestration tools such as Airflow, Luigi, Hangfire or similar
• Experience with Docker or other containerization technologies
• Familiarity with Linux and non-Windows operating systems

Education and/or Experience
Bachelor’s degree (B. A.) in Computer Science, Information Systems, or related field from four-year college or university; and one to three years related experience and/or training; or equivalent combination of education and experience.

Other Skills and Abilities
Capable of working extended hours such as overtime, nights, and weekends when necessary.

Language Skills
Ability to read and comprehend simple instructions, short correspondence, and memos. Ability to effectively present information in one-on-one and small group situations to department members and non-technical baseball operations staff.

Mathematical Skills
Ability to add, subtract, multiply, and divide in all units of measure, using whole numbers, common fractions, and decimals. Ability to compute rate, ratio, and percent and to draw and interpret bar graphs.

Reasoning Ability
Ability to define problems, collect data, establish facts, and draw valid conclusions. Ability to apply common sense understanding to carry out detailed but uninvolved written or oral instructions. Ability to deal with problems involving a few concrete variables in standardized situations.

Work Hours
Business hours are Monday – Friday 9am – 5pm, however, candidates must be capable of working extended hours such as overtime, nights, and weekends, when necessary.

To Apply
To apply, please visit this site to complete an application.

Position: Intern, Baseball Research and Development

Summary
The Milwaukee Brewers are currently seeking an Intern in the Baseball Research and Development Department. The Intern will work with the Baseball R&D, Baseball Systems departments and the entire Baseball Operations Department to deliver research and tools to improve decision making. The position requires a person who has intellectual curiosity, is a self-starter, and can communicate technical and analytical concepts effectively to non-technical people. Being passionate about using data, analysis and technology to improve decision making processes is also a key differentiator.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities include the following.
Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions. Other duties may be assigned.

• Work with Baseball R&D and Baseball Operations to understand analytical needs and implement best practices for meeting those needs.
• Investigate emerging data sources and identify potential for predictive value and actionable insights to improve decision making.
• Develop visualizations and other mechanisms for disseminating analytical results to Baseball Operations, including consideration for less technically and analytically inclined consumers.
• Continually survey latest analytical methods and advancements in Baseball Research to apply cutting edge methods and data to problems.
• Understand current decision processes and information systems and offer enhancements and improvements.
• Ad-hoc requests for reports, visualizations and research projects during the year.

Qualifications
To perform this job successfully, an individual must be able to perform each essential duty satisfactorily. The requirements listed below are representative of the knowledge, skill, and/or ability required.

• Understanding of basic statistical modeling techniques, including, but not limited to, linear regression, logistic regressions, machine learning, etc.
• Proficiency with an analytical software platform required (for example R or Mathematica).
• Proficiency with SQL and SQL databases required.
• Proficiency with data scripting language or ETL environment (Python, PERL, SSIS, etc.) desired.

Education and/or Experience
Bachelor’s degree (B.S./B.A.) in Computer Science, Mathematics, Statistics, Operations Research, or related field from four-year college or university. Advanced degree or current pursuit of advanced degree in one of the areas mentioned above or a related field is desirable.

Computer Skills
To perform the job successfully, an individual should have knowledge of Microsoft office software including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access, Outlook, and Internet Explorer.

Language Skills
Ability to read, analyze, and interpret general business periodicals, professional journals, technical procedures, or governmental regulations. Ability to write reports, business correspondence, and procedure manuals. Ability to effectively present information and respond to questions from groups of managers, clients, customers, and the general public.

Mathematical Skills
Ability to apply advanced mathematical concepts such as exponents, logarithms, quadratic equations, and permutations. Ability to apply mathematical operations to such tasks as frequency distribution, determination of test reliability and validity, analysis of variance, correlation techniques, sampling theory, and factor analysis.

Reasoning Ability
Ability to define problems, collect data, establish facts, and draw valid conclusions. Ability to interpret an extensive variety of technical instructions in mathematical or diagram form and deal with several abstract and concrete variables.

Work Hours
Business hours are Monday – Friday 9am – 5pm, however, candidates must be capable of working extended hours such as overtime, nights, and weekends, when necessary.

To Apply
To apply, please visit this site to complete an application.

The content in this posting was created and provided solely by the Brewers.

Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the Milwaukee Brewers. Scouting reports are compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as from our own (both Eric Longenhagen’s and Kiley McDaniel’s) observations. For more information on the 20-80 scouting scale by which all of our prospect content is governed you can click here. For further explanation of the merits and drawbacks of Future Value, read this.

All of the numbered prospects here also appear on The Board, a new feature at the site that offers sortable scouting information for every organization. That can be found here.

Other Prospects of Note
Grouped by type and listed in order of preference within each category.Power-only Bats Low on the Defensive Spectrum
Jacob Nottingham, C
Weston Wilson, 1B/3B/OF
Jake Gatewood, 1B
Chad McClanahan, 1B
Branlyn Jaraba, 3B
David Fry, C/1B
Ernesto Martinez, 1B

Nottingham will turn 24 this offseason. He has plus power but needs to improve behind the plate in order to profile as a power-over-hit backup. Weston Wilson has above-average raw power and can play the corner outfield spots, first base, and some third. He could be a right-handed corner bench bat. Gatewood has plus-plus raw power and has moved from shortstop to third base to first base as a pro. He’s a R/R first baseman with huge power and strikeout issues. Fringe 40-man candidates like that sometimes bloom late, or at least get a shot at some point. McClanahan signed for $1 million as an 11th rounder in 2016. He’s a big-framed projection bat who is already seeing more reps at first than at third. He has premium makeup. Jaraba was a $1 million signee this year. He’s a R/R power bat who looked like a future first baseman this fall. David Fry was the club’s 7th rounder out of Northwestern State. He has above-average power and hasn’t caught all that much, in part because he had TJ in college. Ernesto Martinez is built like a Greek god and has 70 raw power but his swing has not progressed and it’s currently unusable.

The Tommy John Crew
Drew Rasmussen. RHP
Nathan Kirby, LHP
Quintin Torres-Costa, LHP
Nash Walters, RHP
Devin Williams
Josh Pennington, RHP

Rasmussen has had two TJs. He sits 93-96 with average secondary stuff and below average command when healthy. Kirby has had several injury issues and now has a 40 fastball, but his repertoire is deep and he has a 55 curveball. Torres-Costa is a situational lefty who likely would have been in the big leagues in 2018 if not for his injury. Walters was 92-94, touching 95 in the fall and struggled to throw strikes. Devin Williams is 92-93 with a plus curveball. Pennington retired when he needed his second TJ.

One Plus Pitch
Reese Olson, RHP
Justin Jarvis, RHP
Rodrigo Benoit, RHP

Olson signed for $400,000 and was 92-93, touching 94 with a plus curveball in the fall. Benoit has scattershot command of an average fastball and a plus breaking ball. Jarvis has an above-average changeup.

Weird Arm Slots
J.T. Hintzen, RHP
Scott Sunitsch, LHP

Sunitsch no-hit the University of Oregon in April. He’s a low-slot lefty with a good changeup. Hitzen strides way, way open, toward the first base side, and the ball appears to hitters out of where his stomach was when he came set. Both are release-point oddities who have performed so far.

Offseason Addition
Felix Valerio, 2B

Valerio, who turned 18 in December, was acquired as part of the package for Keon Broxton in January. He hit .319/.409/.433 in the DSL during his first pro season and is a skills-over-tools type of prospect who is more polished than most of his peers. He has promising feel for contact and is athletically viable at second base but, at 5-foot-7, 165, he’s less likely to grow into more impressive physical tools than someone with some length and room on their frame. Players like this either hit enough to play second base every day or they don’t, and they end up as org guys. Valerio walked more than he struck out last year, and those types of peripheral indicators are great evidence to support a case that a player will indeed hit that much, but not when we’re talking about DSL stats, so we’re hesitant give significant weight to Valerio’s early-career numbers.

System Overview
This system looks very weak now that several 45 FV or better prospects have either graduated or been traded, and the farm alone doesn’t project a clear picture of the youthful health of this franchise. The focus now shifts to the collective development of the large number of teenagers in the 40 and 35+ FV tiers. Another sizable wave of talent — position players this time — could arrive in Milwaukee in three to five years. The organization’s recent history of hitter development isn’t all that inspiring; most of Milwaukee’s big league position players came from outside the org, and Orlando Arcia hasn’t made the kind of offensive impact that was expected of him as a prospect. Grisham and Erceg have been frustrating and have gone backwards. Things may not bode well for several of the hitters in this system who clearly need improvement in some way to progress like Milwaukee’s pitching has. The Brewers love idiosyncratic pitchers whose stuff plays up because of one weird thing or another, and they’ve had success developing them.

I decided while working on the Top 50 Free Agents post that it would make sense to also write up the top trade target on the market. Since new Mets GM Brodie Van Wagenen said the team plans to compete in 2019, it seems like Jacob deGrom and Noah Syndergaard are unlikely to be dealt — or, at least not during the offseason. That points to J.T. Realmuto as the clear top trade target in the league (and No. 24 in July’s Trade Value Rankings) — and that’s before nearly half the questions in my chat on Wednesday were asking me how much it would cost for various teams to trade for Realmuto.

I could approach this from an insider-y perspective and tell you what teams are telling me the price probably is, but that approach is limited in a few ways. First off, I’m not sure anyone really knows what the price is: the Marlins have turned down strong offers for a year now and still seem inclined to try to extend Realmuto, even thoughhis agent said he’s not having it. Since Miami has this one major asset left to move in its rebuild, they may act irrationally, but the market pieces may be falling into place for someone to pay a price that justified this delay.

If forced to succinctly describe the current state of catching in the major leagues, I would say it sucks. I’ll let Mike Petriello to provide some details and point you to the positional leaderboard, but if you just tried to predict which catchers would be worth two-plus wins and remain at catcher primarily for the next five seasons, how many would you have? Realmuto is one, and if you think Willson Contreras and Gary Sanchez may play a lot more first base or get hurt or be inconsistent in this span, it’s possible that there isn’t another one. Being charitable, there’s just a handful, and they all cost a lot or aren’t available.

Putting all of this together, Realmuto offers the age-28 and age-29 seasons of the best long- and short-term catcher in the game, and he’ll cost between $15 million and $20 million for those seasons, depending on how his arbitration salaries work out. You have him long enough to make two runs at a title and get a comp pick at the end, an exclusive negotiating window for an extension, a non-risky length of a deal, and cheap enough salaries that any team can afford it.

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On a recent podcast episode, Eric Longenhangen and I discussed the premise for this article, which is another way of asking which organizations are healthiest in the short-to-medium term. The factor that goes furthest towards answering that question is present on-field talent, although salary, controlled years, the presence of impact minor leaguers on the horizon, and front-office quality are all relevant — as is payroll ceiling, which serves as a proxy for margin for error. With the World Series starting tonight, it seemed like the right time to look ahead at the favorites for the five World Series beyond this one.

I’ve experimented with some objective ways of measuring organizational health. I think it’s ultimately possible to produce an algorithm that would do a solid job, ranking teams objectively in a number of key categories. It would also require considerable time. Eager to arrive at some kind of answer, I’ve settled for subjective assessment for this version of the post, but I intend to work on something more systematic in the winter.

Here are the criteria I’ve considered to produce these rankings: short-term MLB talent, long-term MLB talent/upper-minors prospects, lower-minors prospects/trade capital, payroll ceiling, MLB coaching/front office, and amateur signings (draft and international). You could quibble and combine or separate a few of those groupings, or argue some of these can’t be quantified properly. You may be right, but we’ll keep tweaking things until they are.

I had originally intended to limit this list to five teams for purposes of symmetry, but the top tier looked like seven teams to me, and the sources by whom I ran this list agreed. In the same way that the I approached the Trade Value Rankings from the point of view of a medium-payroll, medium-term-focused team, I’ve undertook this exercise by asking which team would be most attractive to a prospect GM if his or her only interest is to win the most World Series possible (and not have low state income tax, run a childhood team, or live in a cool city) over the next five seasons.

Without further explanation, here are the organizations most likely to win the 2019-23 World Series.

1. Los Angeles Dodgers

The top-three teams on this list all have some reasonable claim to the top spot, but I ultimately went with the Dodgers, as they have a little more certainty in terms of on-field personnel than the Yankees possess, while both clubs feature similar built-in financial advantages. (Houston lags behind on the second count.)

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Gary Cohen (Mets), Dave Flemming (Giants), Andy Freed (Rays), Aaron Goldsmith (Mariners), Dave Jaegler (Nationals), Jeff Levering (Brewers), and Don Orsillo (Padres) share something in common. Each began broadcasting for a big-league team after honing his play-by-play skills with the Triple-A Pawtucket Red Sox. The pipeline runs deeper still. Dan Hoard (Bengals) and Bob Socci (Patriots) came to the NFL via the PawSox radio booth.

There’s a good chance that group will grow in the not-too-distant future. Will Flemming — Dave Flemming’s younger brother — has been calling PawSox games for the past four seasons, and many in the industry feel he’s of MLB quality.

He passed an important test this summer. Filling in for Tim Neverett, who was away for his father’s funeral, Flemming was alongside Joe Castiglione when the Red Sox hosted the Phillies on July 30. The game was a thriller, with Boston winning 2-1 in 13 innings.

“There were no low lights,” Flemming.said of his MLB debut “Not one. All of us in this profession dream of that moment, and to have it realized in that ballpark, with this Red Sox team against a good Philadelphia team — Price versus Nola — it was more than I ever could have dreamt of.”

He’s been imagining the moment for years. Despite his relatively young age — Flemming has yet to reach the big 4-0 — he’s no neophyte. His journey has included stints in Lancaster, Potomac, and Indianapolis. At each stop along the way — this is something all minor-league broadcasters can attest to — the frills have been few and far between. Read the rest of this entry »

Here is one list of names: Matt Albers, Chase Anderson, Jett Bandy, Jacob Barnes, Ji-Man Choi, Oliver Drake, Eric Sogard, Brent Suter, Eric Thames, and Jonathan Villar.

Here’s another: Scott Alexander, J.T. Chargois, Tony Cingrani, Kyle Farmer, Josh Fields, Logan Forsythe, Wilmer Font, Corey Seager, Ross Stripling, and Chase Utley.

These are the 20 men — ten Dodgers and ten Brewers — who appeared on their clubs’ 2018 Opening Day rosters but will not — for one reason or another — appear in any of the seven games of this year’s National League Championship Series. One of the two teams they played for this year will advance to the World Series tonight, and will do so without these men. And yet, for some portion of the season at least, there they were, willing their teams along. And so, let us celebrate a few moments in which these guys were glorious, before the inevitable offseason cries of “That guy was a Dodger?” and “Oh! I’d forgotten about him!” set in.

Villar Takes Harvey Deep (+.238 WPA)

Unless you’re a Milwaukee fan, you might not even remember that Jonathan Villar was a Brewer this year. I’d understand. He spent the second half of the season toughing it out for the Orioles, who are best forgotten, and in my mind he is still most closely associated with the Astros. But the fact is that, yes, Villar was indeed a Milwaukee Brewer until July 31st, and on April 14th he was tasked with playing second base for the Crew against the New York Mets at Citi Field.

Harvey, brilliant in his home whites, set down Lorenzo Cain, Eric Thames, and Ryan Braun in order in the first, but then ran into trouble almost immediately in the second, yielding a double to Travis Shaw, before walking Domingo Santana ahead of an Eric Sogard strikeout. That brought Villar — then the owner of a .298 batting average (and a .298 OBP, but let’s pay that no mind) — to the plate. Harvey’s first pitch, a slider, missed badly down and in, and Villar wisely didn’t offer at it. On Harvey’s second pitch, however, Villar flicked his bat out and, almost apologetically, took Harvey deep down the left-field line. Here it is:

I think we can all agree that that was a nice moment for Jonathan Villar.

Chase Utley up past his bedtime in the desert (+.350 WPA)

It feels a little odd to include a guy like Utley on a list like this, which is meant to celebrate the little guy, but he meets all the criteria so I suppose we’ll let him in on a technicality. On April 2nd, which was the Dodgers’ first road game of the season, they played 15 innings against the Arizona Diamondbacks. They were a good 15 innings, too — the Dodgers went up 3-0 in the top of the first, only to see the Diamondbacks tie it with runs in the first, third, and fourth; then the Dodgers added on in each of the sixth, seventh, and eighth to make it 6-3, only to have Arizona tie it in again the ninth and send it to extras. The game proceeded at 6-6 for five innings of taut bonus baseball, until — in the top of the 15th, and presumably somewhat less fresh than he’d been five hours before, when the game began — Chase Utley came to the plate with Cody Bellinger on second, and proceeded to do this:

The Dodgers went on to lose 8-7. But that was nice, Chase.

Scott Alexander shuts it down (+.372 WPA)

Scott Alexander had kind of an anonymous season, as far as seasons by 6’2″ lefties go. His ERA was 3.68. His FIP was 3.57. Both numbers were fine. Scott Alexander was fine. Scott Alexander is not on the Dodgers’ NLCS roster. But on July 13th, he was asked by his manager to go out in the ninth inning of a one-run game against the Los Angeles Angels of Angel Stadium in Anaheim and close things out. Being presumably in search of something to get the ol’ heart moving, he proceeded to allow a double to Shohei Ohtani, which was understandable, and then a single to José Briceño, which was not. That single brought the Dodgers’ win expectancy down from 91 percent at the start of the inning, to 63 percent, when David Fletcher stepped up to the plate with one out. Which made it rather relieving for reliever Alexander that David Fletcher promptly did this:

Ji-Man Choi has a good night (+.463 WPA)

Sometimes you get a lot of WPA because you come to the plate with the game on the line in late innings and do something ordinary, like hit a single or draw a walk. And sometimes you get a lot of WPA because you come to the plate in some random anonymous middle inning and do something very good, like drive in four runs with one swing of the bat. That latter thing is what Ji-Man Choi did against Luis Garcia in the sixth inning of an otherwise unexciting game between the Phillies and the Brewers. This was Choi’s final swing as a Milwaukee Brewer–he was traded to Tampa Bay the next day:

Bonus Jake Arrieta Is Mad content in the above.

Kyle Farmer Drives in Barnes (+.678 WPA)

Kyle Farmer was, before the 2018 season began, featured in articles on this site that referred to him as, variously, one of “seven scrubs” and a “fringe prospect.” Neither of those characterizations are necessarily untrue, but they also failed to anticipate this one wonderful moment from June 19th, when Farmer came to the plate with runners on first and second in a game his team trailed by a run. It was the first game of a doubleheader the Cubs and Dodgers played that day, and Cubs pitcher Justin Wilson was a little bit rattled. After battling to a 2-2 count, and with an almost-casual delivery, Wilson left a 90 mph cutter just a little bit too far over the plate, and within seconds the Dodgers were ahead, as it turned out for good:

Eric Thames Sinks Wade Davis (+.822 WPA)

Here it is: The single most impactful moment by a Dodger or Brewer not featured in tonight’s game, and it’s a classic. The Brewers entered the bottom of the ninth inning of their August 3rd game against the Colorado Rockies down 3-2. They trailed the Cubs in the NL Central standings by one game. The Cubs had won that afternoon behind a José Quintana dandy, and a loss would have put the Brewers two games back headed into the long month of August. Which all made this ninth inning rather important for Milwaukee. Wade Davis managed to retire Mike Moustakas swinging, then walked Jesús Aguilar and Travis Shaw in order before retiring Jonathan Schoop on a pop fly. That brought Thames to the plate — still struggling, as he had been all season, and about to enter a spiral that would pull his average from .244 that day to .219 on September 30th. He did, however, have one more good swing in him:

Villar, Utley, Alexander, Choi, Farmer, and Thames. I’d wager they’ll be watching the game tonight. They helped these teams get to where they are right now. They’ll own a little bit of whatever celebration comes next.

Early in this NLCS, when the defining feature of it seemed to be the randomness of Brandon Woodruff‘s Game One homer off Clayton Kershaw and Wade Miley’s Game Two double off Hyun-Jin Ryu, it was easy to scoff at the hype equating the series to a chess match between managers Craig Counsell and Dave Roberts. As the series has unfolded, however, watching Counsell handle the Brewers’ pitching staff in a fashion largely without precedent in postseason baseball and Roberts use the Dodgers’ roster’s depth and versatility to counter with “line changes” (in the hockey sense) to secure the platoon advantage in as many spots as possible has made for a compelling accompaniment to the action on the field.

Never was that more true than in Game Five, when Counsell’s shockingly quick hook of Miley in favor of Woodruff — echoing a tactic from a World Series nearly a century ago — and Roberts’ persistence in sticking with Kershaw made for the series’ starkest contrast yet. Ultimately, the Dodgers outlasted the Brewers for a 5-2 win and a 3-2 series edge.

The wily, left-handed Miley had pitched brilliantly in Game Two, retiring 17 of the 19 Dodgers he faced while helping to keep the Dodgers scoreless through six. Only after he departed did Los Angeles’s offense show signs of life, ultimately breaking through for a 4-3 win. When Counsell announced that Miley would start Game FIve on three days of rest, the choice seemed logical given the team’s loose definition of a “rotation,” because nobody expected seven innings or 100 pitches. Four innings, give or take, made perfect sense, even with the staff having been stretched for 13 innings in their Game Four loss.

Roberts, whose all-righty starting lineup from Game Two floundered against Miley, sensed an early move might be afoot and guarded towards an early change to a righty by starting two lefties and rejiggering his outfield:

Muncy, who hit for a 141 wRC+ against southpaws, was starting at second base for the first time since September 11 and just the 14th time all season. Bellinger, Tuesday night’s hero, managed just an 88 wRC+ against southpaws this year.

As it turned out, Miley threw just five pitches, walking Bellinger and getting the hook — not for injury or performance reasons, but because that had been Counsell’s plan all along — to switch to the right-handed Woodruff, who had thrown two impressive, perfect innings in Game One. The idea to bring Miley back to start Game Six in Milwaukee. It was a plan so secret that only the two pitchers, Counsell, and his staff knew ahead of time; Woodruff couldn’t even tell his family, and players such as Lorenzo Cain professed to be caught off guard.

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Last night, Manny Machado scored the decisive run in an extra-inning walkoff victory to tie the NLCS at two games a piece and put the Dodgers within two wins of the World Series. When discussing Machado and last night’s game, we’d ideally be focusing on his key hit, his smart and aggressive take of second base on a wild pitch, and his impressive dash from second to home on a single to right field that barely beat a strong throw from Christian Yelich.

We aren’t talking about that, though. We’re talking instead about a play in the 10th inning of last night’s game on which Manny Machado made contact with Brewers first baseman Jesus Aguilar:

In real time, it looked really awkward, but not necessarily malicious. After the game, the Brewers said the play was dirty or insinuated as such by questioning Machado’s general attitude about playing hard. From the MLB.com story:

“It’s a dirty play by a dirty player,” Brewers right fielder Christian Yelich said.

“It looked like it,” Aguilar said. “I’ve known Manny for many years and I don’t know why he would act like that.”

Brewers manager Craig Counsell threw shade at Machado when asked if the play went beyond the grounds of hard play.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I guess they got tangled up at first base. I don’t think he’s playing all that hard.”

Machado didn’t really back down either:

“If that’s dirty, that’s dirty,” Machado said. “I don’t know, call it what you want. I play baseball. I try to go out there and win for my team. If that’s their comments, that’s their comments. I can’t do nothing about that.”

Let’s start by giving Machado the benefit of the doubt and assume, for sake of argument, that it was just a weird play. In that spirit, let’s take a few closer looks at it to see what kind of determinations we might be able to make. Here’s another angle from directly behind Machado.

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Postseason baseball has not come easily to Cody Bellinger. After setting an NL rookie record with 39 home runs in 2017, the then-22-year-old endured ups and downs last October, coming up big in the Dodgers’ Division and League Championship clinchers but going 4-for-28 with a record setting 17 strikeouts in the World Series. Those struggles had continued this fall, in the form of a 1-for-21 skid through Game Four of the NLCS and a spot on the bench for Game Four, as lefty Gio Gonzalez started for the Brewers. Nonetheless, in a five-hour, 15-minute slog that he didn’t even enter until the sixth inning, Bellinger played the hero, first with a diving catch on a potential extra-base hit off the bat of Lorenzo Cain in the 10th inning and then a walk-off RBI single in the 13th, giving the Dodgers a 2-1 victory.

The hit was actually Bellinger’s second of the night. His first came in the eighth inning, when he countered the Brewers’ defensive shift with an opposite-field single off the nearly unhittable Josh Hader, a Nice Piece of Hitting.

Bellinger, despite his pull tendencies, ranked ninth in the majors on grounders against the shift during the regular season, with a 98 wRC+. His 111 wRC+ overall on balls in play against the shift ranked 24th among the 123 hitters with at least 100 PA under such circumstances, which is to say that he’s fared well in this capacity — among the many other ways he’s fared well — despite this October slump.

Paired with Max Muncy’s leadoff single earlier in the inning, it was the first time all year that the Brewers’ fireman yielded multiple hits to left-handed batters in the same outing. The Dodgers couldn’t convert there — more on which momentarily — but Bellinger would only come up bigger.

Here’s Bellinger’s catch off Cain’s liner, which led off the 10th inning against Kenley Jansen. According to Statcast, it had a hit probability of 94%:

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