It should be said that it’s players who win and lose baseball games. Jake Arrieta, Ty Blach, Kris Bryant, Madison Bumgarner, Aroldis Chapman, and Conor Gillaspie: all had a greater impact than Chicago Cubs manager Joe Maddon on the outcome of last night’s thrilling 13-inning, 6-5 San Francisco victory. Because players are often forced to make decisions quickly, however, it’s difficult to question the wisdom of those decisions. Telling Hunter Pence not to swing at a 102-mph fastball several inches out of the zone, for example, ignores the reality the situation. There’s no time for deliberation. The same isn’t necessarily true for managers.

Managers, too, make difficult decisions — decisions which, given the wealth of information they possess relative to the general public, are also frequently difficult to critique responsibly. But their thought process is easier to decipher and their decisions are less physical — excepting those that come from the gut. In Game 3 of the Division Series against the Giants, a crazy game that might have been over many times, Maddon made a number of decisions. Most, especially the successful and inconsequential, went unnoticed. What follows is a review of the less successful, less inconsequential decisions.

Using Aroldis Chapman in the Eighth

While this choice is likely to get the most attention, given that Chapman came in and blew the save, using Chapman in the eighth is pretty close to a no-brainer. When Chapman entered the game in the eighth inning and no outs, the Cubs were leading by one run. With runners on first and second and nobody out, however, the Giants actually possessed the higher win expectancy (51%). The leverage index was a massive 5.13. For comparison’s sake, when David Ross came to the plate in the top of the 13th with runners on first and second and one out, the leverage index was a very high, but less light, 4.62. At no point in last year’s 12-inning, World Series-concluding game did the leverage index ever reach 5.0. And actually, after Chapman struck out Hunter Pence, the leverage index even increased to 5.44 for Conor Gillaspie’s plate appearance. Using your lights-out pitcher in this situation is certainly the right move.

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After witnessing the lengths to which Madison Bumgarner and the San Francisco Giants went in attacking Yoenis Cespedes‘ weak spot in the National League Wild Card play-in game, the natural progression was to wonder whether they’d do the same for any of the Cubs’ best hitters in the Division Series.

Say, Anthony Rizzo sure has had a miserable postseason so far. After going 0-for-6 in last night’s 13-inning thriller, the Cubs’ first baseman is 0-for-13 this postseason with three strikeouts and no walks, hit by pitches, or even sacrifice flies. Almost makes me wonder if the Giants aren’t exploiting some hole in his swing the way they exploited the whole in Cespedes’ swing.

First, Rizzo’s weakness:

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Here on FanGraphs, we host live, interactive win-expectancy graphs for every game, and they usually don’t look like this:

It’s rare for any one of these graphs to stretch 13 innings. It’s rare for the team in complete control for innings six through eight to wind up losing the game. It’s rare for the biggest play in regulation to read “J Arrieta Home Run.” It’s rare for there to be such a large and sudden spike at the end. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen that parabolic shape in the middle before.

Game 2 of the National League Division Series between the Giants and Cubs was bonkers. Let’s address all 10 times it looked like it might be over.

No. 1 – First inning

If you’re an extremist, this thing might’ve looked over before it started. Sure, the Cubs were up two games to none in the series and had clearly looked like the better team thus far, but this is Madison Bumgarner we’re talking about, whose soul exits the body and watches over its human figure pitching from above during the postseason. I don’t know why that little box is showing regular-season stats over on the right. The more compelling graphic would’ve been the postseason version, which just consists of “as many as there are” in the games and innings columns and a bunch of zeros in the rest.

Actual win expectancy: 54%, Giants

Perceived win expectancy: EvenYearBumgarner%, Giants
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Seeing as this is an article about Aroldis Chapman, I might be letting down my audience if I didn’t at least briefly discuss the most recent pitch Aroldis Chapman threw, considering what that most recent pitch was. The last pitch Aroldis Chapman threw in a game was a fastball, for a swinging strike — which, on its own, given our subject, is entirely unremarkable. The pitch went 103.3 mph, which is less remarkable for our subject than any other pitcher in baseball, but is fast even for Chapman’s standards. Most remarkable of all, the pitch moved like this:

To quickly play the role of Party Pooper, I have to point out that the way a catcher receives a pitch can sometimes play a trick on our eyes, deceiving us into believing a pitch had more movement than it actually did, and I think that’s at least somewhat at play here with Willson Contreras‘ stabbing motion, in concert with the pitch’s natural arm-side tail, creating an exaggerated illusion of how much this pitch actually broke.

That’s not to say the pitch wasn’t exceptional, even for Chapman. Despite my poo-pooing just a second ago, you might be able to make the case this is the most exceptional fastball Chapman’s ever thrown. The Cubs’ closer threw 15 fastballs in his save during Saturday’s 5-2 win over the Giants, and the 14 fastballs preceding the one depicted above averaged 4.6 inches of horizontal break. Chapman’s fastball, for the entire season, averaged 4.8 inches of horizontal break. This particular fastball, that final fastball, broke 9.3 inches to the arm side. It moved about twice as much as the average Chapman fastball.

Using BaseballSavant, I compiled a spreadsheet of every fastball Chapman’s thrown in his career — 5,161 pitches. I sorted them by horizontal movement. This one ranked 63rd. That’s not as sexy a result as first or second or even 10th, but it’s still in the 99th percentile. Also: at 103.3 mph, only two of the 62 fastballs with more horizontal break were also thrown as hard. Also also: those two pitches were both in the dirt. This one went for a swinging strike to end a playoff game. That’s how you make the argument this was the most exceptional fastball Aroldis Chapman has ever thrown.

For fun, I wanted to create an image. This image shows every fastball thrown by a left-handed pitcher in 2016, plotting velocity against horizontal movement, with all of Chapman’s pitches removed except the one in question. I find humor in this:

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After a few months of mostly meaningless regular-season baseball, the Cubs begin their pursuit of a World Series title tonight. This is the best team the Cubs have had in a very long time, and 108 years since their last championship, Cubs fans are understandably excited about the possibility this roster provides. After spending most of their lives waiting until next year, this really could be the year they’ve been waiting for.

Unfortunately, it feels like this Cubs team will be defined by these next three weeks of baseball. The team is so good that they’ve created their own heightened expectations, and with the best roster in baseball, anything short of ending the World Series drought will be seen as a failure. But the unfortunate reality of postseason baseball is that the Cubs are far more likely to fail than they are to succeed.

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Come playoff time, you tend to see a lot of team-to-team comparisons. And when you see team-to-team comparisons, the people doing the comparing frequently lean on regular-season statistics. And, you know, in theory that makes plenty of sense. Those numbers are readily available all over the place, and, isn’t the regular season a hell of a sample? Doesn’t the regular season pretty adequately reflect the level of talent on a given roster?

I’m not going to argue that regular-season numbers are or aren’t more important than, say, postseason numbers. The regular season obviously has the biggest and therefore the most meaningful sample. But as should go without saying, things change come October. Rosters are optimized, and usage patterns shift. For example, during the year, Rangers hitters had a 98 wRC+. Rangers hitters on the roster today averaged a weighted 106 wRC+. During the year, Rangers relievers had a 100 ERA-. Rangers relievers expected to relieve in the playoffs averaged a weighted 75 ERA-. The Rangers aren’t what they were for six months. No team is, entirely. So what do we have now? What does the actual, weighted playoff landscape look like?

Time for some tables of numbers. That’s almost as fun as actual baseball!

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Remember the kid in high school who always got straight “A”s? While everybody else was going about their business doing their best to stay afloat, that kid would seek out his or her own challenges just to try to make school interesting. Whether you loved, hated, or were that kid, you’ll never forget the way he or she seemingly operated at another level. In major-league baseball this year, there were a few players worthy of a comparison to that kid, but right now we’re going to talk about the one team who warrants the comparison: the Cubs. Specifically, we’re going to look at one way they challenged themselves and how it might pay off in the playoffs.

How do you improve when you’re already the best? That’s a somewhat obnoxious oversimplification of the situation the Cubs faced prior to the July trade deadline, but it’s not without merit. The Cubs have had ups and downs throughout the season, but it would be disingenuous to attempt to contend that a team ranking atop the majors in wins, team RA9, position-player wRC+, and defense is anything less than the best. They enter the playoffs the easy favorites on paper and, remarkably, that probably would have been true even if the team had failed to make a single upgrade at the trade deadline.

Of course, they didn’t stay quiet in July. As you know, their big splash was the acquisition of Aroldis Chapman – a move which helped shore up their bullpen as well as address their lack of left-handed relief options. Chapman has been predictably great for the Cubs and figures to be an important part of their postseason run, but that’s not the move we need to talk about. The Chapman acquisition is important, but its impact is boringly straightforward. The more intriguing move was the acquisition of another left-handed pitcher: Mike Montgomery.

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Importantly, for the Cubs, this season isn’t over. Obviously, this season isn’t over — in a sense their real season hasn’t begun. We’ve known the Cubs would make the playoffs for something like five and a half months, and only now do they get to compete for the grand prize. Because there are games remaining, this might not seem like the best time to examine the 2016 Cubs through a historical lens.

I believe the opposite, though. At last, we have final, official regular-season statistics. Those are the stats that matter the most. And even though the Cubs are clearly Team No. 1 moving forward, the odds are still better that they don’t win the World Series. They’re probably going to lose, somewhere and somehow. And I don’t want to allow for playoff emotion to color the way people feel about this analysis. This season, the Cubs won eight more games than anyone else. The Cubs had a better run differential than anyone else, by a margin of 68. Clearly, they were really good. But how good, historically, when you’re talking about more than 100 years?

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According to recent reports, the Marlins are on the verge of signing third baseman Martin Prado to a contract that would keep him from hitting the free agent market this winter; the extension will cost them roughly $40 million over three years, keeping Prado in Miami for his age 33-35 seasons.

According to even more recent reports, the Cubs are on the verge of signing President of Baseball Operations Theo Epstein to a contract that would keep him from hitting the free agent market this winter; the extension will cost them roughly $50 million over five years, keeping Epstein in Chicago for his age 43-47 seasons.

Between the two of them, the Epstein news is certainly more significant. The architect of the best team in baseball, Epstein is now the highest paid executive in the sport, and this represents about a 250% raise over the contract he got when he got to Chicago, which paid him $18 million over five years. The Prado deal is more of a run-of-the-mill contract extension for a nice player, but it barely rated as news in the baseball landscape. But given the differing lengths of the contracts, Prado is actually making more per season, and the two deals are roughly comparable in value.

In other words, MLB just told us that one of the best executives in the game is worth about the same as the decline years of a solid non-star, a guy who should be expected to be something like a league average player during the contract he just signed. I’m sure the Marlins and Cubs weren’t trying to create this kind of juxtaposition, but thanks to the timing of these two deals, we can say that the market is currently valuing coveted front office members in a similar way to an average player.

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I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the Rangers’ success in one-run games. They actually lost by one run yesterday, but if you’ve been paying attention, that was the first time that’s happened all season, probably, and one game doesn’t upset the whole pattern. The regular season is just about done, and the Rangers have put together an incredible stat. That’s — well, it’s incredible. I don’t need to provide any other words.

It’s tricky to write about these things, and I wasn’t looking to cover this in the familiar way. We’ve all read a number of articles about what the Rangers have done. We’ve all read articles before about similar teams doing similar things. It’s boring to say “luck,” and it’s tired to say “luck,” and with the playoffs around the corner pointing toward luck is additionally irrelevant. The Rangers have done what they’ve done, and their fans have been able to enjoy it. There’s no taking any of that enjoyment back for math-y purposes.

I’ve just been amazed by how the Rangers have stood out. They’ve won 77% of their one-run games. The Yankees are in second at 69%. Then you have the Tigers at 62%. Thinking about the Rangers got me wondering: Is this the most extraordinary team statistic of the year? I’ll tell you right now: It’s not! Follow along below.

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