Decision-making in the playoffs is a micro-focused as you can imagine. The level of preparation which goes into these games will never be fully known in the public sphere, but if a team wants even the slightest competitive edge, you better believe the details are as granular as the fine sands of Puerto Rico’s Playa Negrita.

Every opposing hitter has a zone and/or pitch that is a weak spot. You must know who on your pitching staff is best suited to throw to those weaknesses, and what hitters are most adaptable to use pitch sequences that will play to those same weaknesses. The following matchups are a few areas that could sway any given game in either direction. They are certainly not the only of high importance, but the statistical or situational holes make them worth mentioning. I’ll go through series by series and pick one that deserves attention, starting with the Yankees against the Guardians.

Guardians’ offense vs. Yankees’ sinkerballers

The Yankees’ bullpen is loaded with turbo sinkers and groundball pitchers. Lou Trivino, Jonathan Loáisiga, and Clay Holmes, to name a few, all feature a sinker as their primary fastball. Each of them will be used in high-leverage scenarios against any layer of the Guardians’ lineup, which has been the very worst in the American League against the sinker, posting the second-lowest wOBA (.317) and the lowest xwOBA (.319).

There’s plenty to suggest the Yankees’ bullpen will give the Guardians issues. Because of those turbo sinkers, New York’s bullpen led all of baseball in GB% (49.1%) and Run Value (-20.3 runs). The next best in both categories was Baltimore, which trailed in each by a decent margin (1.5 percentage points and 1.9 runs). In today’s game, being better than every team at throwing sinkers provides a significant competitive advantage, as it keeps batted balls out of the air and on the ground. Read the rest of this entry »

The National League’s adoption of the designated hitter this season eliminated the most noticeable difference between it and the American League. Now, the National League is what makes grown men in scarves weep on public transit, and the American League comes with a slice of melted cheese on top. (No, I have not updated my pop culture references since 2009, and I have no plans to do so.)

The only remaining difference is that the AL gets an extra off day during the Division Series. MLB announced in August that contrary to prior practice, the Division Series would no longer have a travel day between Games 4 and 5. But while the NL would play two games, get a day off, and then play three in a row, the American League gets an extra day off without travel between Games 1 and 2.

When the league announced this new scheme, an obvious question occurred to my colleague Dan Szymborski: How would this affect pitcher usage? Previously, a Division Series contestant could run four pitchers on full rest, and have both its Game 1 and Game 2 starter on full rest for the decisive match, if necessary. Or it could bring back its Game 1 starter on short rest for Game 4, and have everyone else start in order on regular rest. Moving or eliminating the off day throws that practice into chaos. Read the rest of this entry »

It wouldn’t be unreasonable to say that no matter what happens, the 2022 Padres ultimately had a fine season. Despite losing their best player for the entire season (and a chunk of the next one), they won 89 games and made the playoffs, and also acquired one of the best young players ever available via trade. They excised the worst of 2021’s demons in avoiding a repeat of the sudden, stunning collapse that transformed them from a top-tier contender to a sub-.500 squad. And most recently, they went to New York and ended the season of the 101-win Mets. But the season would still not feel like a triumph if they now fell to their biggest rival, the Los Angeles Dodgers (sorry, Giants fans, you have to share your bête noire). That’s easier said than done.

The rivalry between the Dodgers and Padres over the last few years has largely been a mismatch. San Diego went a miserable 5–14 against the Dodgers in 2022, didn’t even take a single series against them this season, and haven’t had a winning record in this matchup since 2010. To add injury to insult, the only time the Padres have made the playoffs during the A.J. Preller era, the weird 2020 season, it was the Dodgers that sent them packing in a 3–0 sweep in the NLDS.

Let’s start things out with the ZiPS game-by-game projection.

The Dodgers are keeping it close, as of press time, whether Clayton Kershaw or Julio Urías will be the Game 1 starter (though reportedly, they already know). While Kershaw has seniority in the rotation, the team has regularly not started him in the first game of a series when he’s available, with both Urías and Walker Buehler among the pitchers getting the nod in recent years among others. ZiPS would slightly favor Kershaw as the Game 1/Game 5 starter, bumping the projected probability of the Dodgers advancing from 60.2% to 61.6%. While Urías won his first ERA crown in 2022, his peripherals are down slightly from ’21. Read the rest of this entry »

Max Muncy is having a slightly better-than-league average offensive season. That’s not at all unusual, as Muncy has been an offensive force ever since he joined the Dodgers in 2018. But remember, way back in the olden days of early spring, when he looked disturbingly lost? An elbow injury suffered last year had knocked his mechanics all out of whack, and pitches he’d usually line off the wall were getting popped up or beaten into the ground. Nothing worked. It’s not just that he hit .164 in the first half of the season; he hit under .200 in each of the first four months of the season individually.

It’s kind of remarkable that the Dodgers let him play through this funk; he wasn’t in the lineup every day, but he played 73 games and batted 297 times in the first half. That’s a lot of rope. Usually, in order to get that much playing time with a sub-.200 average, a player needs to be either a premium defender at an up-the-middle position or a Pittsburgh Pirate. But the Dodgers have been tolerant of struggling stars in recent years. Cody Bellinger, for instance, is still a regular despite having been stricken blind sometime in 2020. Read the rest of this entry »

Nick Frasso has a high-octane heater and an intriguing ceiling. Acquired by the Los Angeles Dodgers from the Toronto Blue Jays at this summer’s trade deadline, the 23-year-old right-hander was described by Eric Longenhagen prior to the season as “an uncommon sort of prospect,” a projectable hurler who’d had a velocity spike before undergoing Tommy John surgery shortly after being selected 106th overall in the 2020 draft.

Loyola Marymount University product has only elevated his profile since returning to the mound in mid-May. Featuring a fastball with more juice than the one he displayed pre-injury, he logged a 1.83 ERA with 76 strikeouts and just 33 hits allowed in 54 innings. Moreover, he did so while climbing from Low-A to Double-A in three months time.

Frasso — No. 20 on our Dodgers prospect rankings, with a 40+ FV — sat down to discuss his repertoire, and recent change of scenery, following an August outing with the High-A Great Lakes Loons.

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David Laurila: Let’s start with your early-career development. What do you know now that you didn’t when you signed your first professional contract?

Nick Frasso: “My last year in college is when we finally got a TrackMan at our school and as that was the COVID year, I didn’t even get to use it a ton. It wasn’t until I jumped into pro ball that I really got access to all the analytical stuff — the metrics that allowed me to see what my pitches do, what works better in certain situations, and stuff like that. I’ve kind of gone from there.”

Laurila: I was at last night’s [August 16] game and saw you hit triple digits a couple of times. How does your fastball profile outside of the velocity? Read the rest of this entry »

Injuries are always unwelcome, but the pumpkin spice season is perhaps the most unfortunate time of year to lose a player to one. A surprise malady at this point in the season can shut a player out of some, if not all, of the postseason, and with no ability to make trades and playoff eligibility freezing at the beginning of September, it’s especially challenging to fill holes on the big league roster. This weekend featured some particularly bad injury news for playoff teams, as a number of players who can’t be easily replaced saw their postseason outlook take a turn for the worse.

Let’s take stock of what these injuries might mean come October, beginning with the Tampa Bay Rays, who got the worst bit of news. Shane Baz needs Tommy John surgery, and since we’re so late in the season, 2023 is off the table for his return as well. Until this setback, Baz’s recovery from his most recent elbow problem seemed to be going well, and the team had held out hope that they’d be able to get him up to speed enough to at least pitch in relief. With Baz out, the Rays will have to rely more on Tyler Glasnow, who is expected to be activated on Wednesday in his return from a Tommy John surgery of his own.

The bad news in Tampa didn’t stop with Baz. Brandon Lowe’s back problems have ended his 2022 season early. While (hopefully) not as significant as Baz’s injury, Lowe has struggled with back pain for most of the season and recently had a cortisone injection. As with Baz, the hope had been to get him back on the roster in time for the playoffs. Even with his struggles this year, which were due in large part to the aforementioned injury, ZiPS still thinks Lowe’s bat has the most upside of nearly anyone on the team, and the Rays will take a small but significant hit in the postseason projections in his absence. Without Baz and Lowe, ZiPS thinks of the Rays as a .547 team rather than a .553 one, with their solid depth keeping things from being far worse. The full version of ZiPS projects Lowe’s primary replacement, Jonathan Aranda, at a 105 wRC+ for the rest of the season, a significant bump from his 90 wRC+ projection before the season. Read the rest of this entry »

Trayce Thompson may not be the most accomplished professional athlete in his family — not when father Mychal Thompson and older brother Klay Thompson have six NBA titles and five All-Star selections between them — but for the first time in six years, he’s making significant noise of his own at the major league level. Now on his second stint with the Dodgers, the 31-year-old Thompson is in the midst of a modest breakout, one that could have ramifications for Los Angeles’ roster in October and beyond.

A night after the Dodgers clinched their ninth NL West title in 10 years, Thompson started in right field in place of Mookie Betts and followed a solo homer by Will Smith with one of his own, a 445-foot shot off Zach Davies. That tied the game at 2–2, though Los Angeles eventually lost in extra innings.

The homer was Thompson’s 10th of the season in just 205 plate appearances; he’s the eighth Dodger to reach double digits. Even with a September slump, the well-traveled outfielder has the highest wRC+ of any Dodger since the All-Star break and is tied for third in WAR, behind or alongside three players who are going to wind up somewhere on MVP ballots:

That’s pretty lofty company for a player who’s on his third organization and fourth team (including affiliates) this season. Thompson is yet another reminder of the Dodgers’ ability to find diamonds in the rough and turn them into championship-caliber cogs, a facet of their organization that’s been as essential as their player development pipeline. Turner was in his age-29 season when he became a mainstay in 2014, Taylor in his age-26 season in ’17, and Muncy in his age-27 season in ’18. Despite their staggered starts, they’re three of the Dodgers’ five most valuable position players since Dave Roberts took over as manager in 2016. Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday, I took a look at a few starters who have changed their pitch mix after being traded halfway through this season. Today, I’m finishing the set. Here are the relievers who have changed their pitch selection the most in the month after joining new teams. One note: since relievers throw fewer pitches, the variability in their mix is greater; a few extra sliders to get the feel for them in a random game can tip the percentages meaningfully. I’m focusing on five relievers who made interesting changes, but you could add others to the list.

Lou Trivino, New York Yankees

The Change: -12% Four-Seamer, -6% Changeup, +8% Cutter, +14% Slider
Trivino is a rarity, a legitimate five-pitch reliever. He’s thrown his changeup, slider, sinker, cutter, and four-seamer each at least 10% of the time this year, and mixed in an occasional curveball for good measure. The Yankees are working to change that.

Since donning pinstripes, Trivino is down to three pitches he uses at least 10% of the time: sinker, slider, cutter. His slider is new this year, one of the sweeping types that are all the rage these days, and he’d already taken to the pitch in Oakland, using it nearly 20% of the time. He’s using it even more in New York; a third of the pitches he’s thrown as a Yankee have been sliders. Read the rest of this entry »

The top prospect in the Los Angeles Dodgers system lost one of his baseball “brothers” a month ago. Not literally — Alex De Jesus is alive and well — but rather by dint of a trade-deadline deal. A 20-year-old infielder who’d been playing with the High-A Great Lakes Loons, De Jesus went to the Toronto Blue Jays organization, along with Mitch White, in exchange for Moises Brito and Nick Frasso.

Shortly after the trade, I asked Diego Cartaya what it’s like to have a teammate who is also a close friend leave the organization.

“It’s not easy, but I’m kind of happy for him,” replied Cartaya, who along with being L.A.’s top prospect is No. 31 in our MLB prospect rankings. “He’s going to get a better opportunity with Toronto, so we’re pretty excited for him. But it’s hard. As teammates, we spend more time together than we do with our families. He’s just like my brother.”

Cartaya’s real family is in Venezuela, and it was his father who initially taught him how to hit. The tutoring he’s received since entering pro ball at age 16 has resulted in occasional tweaks, both to his stance and his swing. Cartaya told me that he used to be “more of a big launch-angle guy,” but now has a flatter swing. Upon hearing that, I noted that the home run I’d seen him hit the previous night was more of a line drive than a moonshot. Read the rest of this entry »

With Tuesday night’s 4–3 win over the Mets at Citi Field, the Dodgers notched their 90th victory of the season, the second time in the last seven years that the team reached 90 wins before the end of August. Even with a subsequent pair of losses on Wednesday night and Thursday afternoon, the Dodgers once again have a shot not just at 100 wins (a plateau they’ve reached four times in six full seasons under manager Dave Roberts) or even 106 (a franchise record set in 2019 and matched last year), but also at the 2001 Mariners’ expansion-era record of 116 wins, though admittedly their odds for that one grew longer this week.

The Dodgers enter Friday with an 18-game lead over the Padres in the NL West and a magic number of 14 (and can quickly shrink the latter with their series in San Diego this weekend). Despite their series loss in New York, they’re still seven games ahead of the Mets (84–48) in the race for the NL’s best record and thus the top seed in the expanded postseason. Our Playoff Odds project them to finish with 109 wins, which would be the majors’ highest total since the aforementioned Mariners. Via our Odds distribution, they have a 62.1% chance of winning at least 109, though after their back-to-back losses, their chances of winning 116 or more games are down to 1.1%.

Earlier this year, it was the Yankees who were on pace to top 116 wins, but their 13–13 July snuffed that dream out, and a 10–18 August has put even a 100-win season in doubt. The Dodgers, who briefly slipped into second place in the NL West on June 17, when they were 39–24, had a lead of just 1.5 games over the Padres as recently as June 29. They’ve gone 45–12 (.789) since that date, with separate winning streaks of seven, eight, and 12 games. Read the rest of this entry »