Before the 2018 season, two previously big-spending teams had plans to drop below the luxury tax threshold and reset their tax rates. The first, the Yankees, nonetheless had a successful season, winning 100 games en route to a Wild Card win and Division Series berth. The other, the Dodgers, had a more successful season, making it to the World Series for the second consecutive year before succumbing to the Red Sox (themselves big spenders) and Ryan Madson. In both cases, however, we have teams with young talent that look to be contenders for years to come, so the conventional thinking going into 2018 was that both franchises would drop below the tax limit for one year to reset their rates and then be active in what was long thought to be one of the most coveted free agent class of the decade.

So though the Dodgers have already accomplished their major offseason business – inking Clayton Kershaw to a contract extension, thereby avoiding the lefty ace hitting free agency – many expected them to return to something more closely resembling their 2017 ways, when the team spent a whopping $290 million between payroll and taxes.

But earlier this month, Bill Shaikin of the Los Angeles Times, reported that may not actually be in the offing.

. . .

This post is part of a series concerning the 2019 Today’s Game Era Committee ballot, covering executives, managers and long-retired players whose candidacies will be voted upon at the Winter Meetings in Las Vegas on December 9. Use the tool above to read the introduction and other installments. For an introduction to JAWS, see here. Several profiles in this series are adapted from work previously published at SI.com and Baseball Prospectus. All WAR figures refer to the Baseball-Reference version unless otherwise indicated.

Kirk Gibson’s walkoff home run off Dennis Eckersley may be the year’s most enduring highlight, but Orel Hershiser owned 1988 the way Babe Ruth owned 1927, or Roger Maris 1961, or Denny McLain 1968. That year, the Dodgers’ wiry righty set a still-standing record with 59 consecutive scoreless innings, surpassing that of Don Drysdale. After his 23 wins, 15 complete games, eight shutouts, 267 innings, and 7.2 WAR all led the NL, he won MVP honors in both the NLCS and World Series while helping a banged-up Dodgers squad upset the heavily favored Mets and A’s. Not only was he the unanimous winner of the NL Cy Young Award, he netted the year’s Sports Illustrated Sportsman of the Year and Associated Press Male Athlete of the Year awards, as well. It was a very good year.

Hershiser never equaled those heights again, but who could? Still, he showed incredible tenacity in an 18-year major-league career (1983-2000) bifurcated by a 1990 shoulder injury, ranking as the NL’s most valuable pitcher for a six-year stretch (1984-89) before his injury and reinventing himself after a groundbreaking surgery by Dr. Frank Jobe, best known for his innovation in saving Tommy John’s career. Hershiser actually won more games and pitched in more World Series after the injury than before (105 and two, compared to 99 and one), living up to the nickname “The Bulldog,” which manager Tommy Lasorda had originally bestowed upon him as a rookie to inspire him to pitch more aggressively.

Drafted by the Dodgers in the 17th round out of Bowling Green in 1979, Hershiser made his major \[league debut on September 1, 1983. After pitching eight games in relief that year and spending most of the first three months of the 1984 season in the bullpen, he tossed a complete game against the Cubs on June 29, allowing one run and setting off a 33.2-inning scoreless streak that included three complete-game shutouts, two of them two-hit, nine-strikeout efforts. He finished third in the league with a 2.66 ERA in 189.2 innings, and came in third in the NL Rookie of the Year vote behind Dwight Gooden and Juan Samuel. Armed with a new split-fingered fastball to complement a sinker that would become legendary, he made even bigger waves by going 19-3 with a 2.03 ERA (again third in the league) and finishing third in the Cy Young vote (Gooden won that, too).

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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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Less than a week ago, Clayton Kershaw had to worry about every single pitch he was throwing in the World Series. And then after he threw most of those pitches well, but some of those pitches not well enough, he had to worry about the future of his career. Kershaw had to decide whether to opt out of his existing contract, which promised him $65 million over the next two years. If you’ve stayed in touch with baseball at all this week, you knew Kershaw and the Dodgers had moved the decision point to Friday. Decision’s been made. Kershaw will stay in LA, and he’s effectively getting a one-year extension.

Kershaw breakdown: $31M in 2019, ‘20 and ‘21, plus $1M each for 24 starts, 26 starts, 28 starts, 30 starts. Also gets $1.5M for Cy Young, $500K for second- or third-place finish.

— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) November 2, 2018

Instead of two years and $65 million, Kershaw’s contract has been reworked to three years and $93 million, with some achievable bonuses. This doesn’t guarantee that Kershaw will stay with the Dodgers for the rest of his life, but it’s a major step in that direction, since when this is over Kershaw will be approaching 34 years old. This was the clearest opportunity for Kershaw to leave. The opportunity wasn’t seized, and while I have no specific rooting interest, I’m rather pleased about that.

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The popularity of baseball is oft-discussed and yet somewhat difficult to measure. We can look at everything from attendance to jersey sales to commercials to revenue and yet fail to reach any real conclusions due to the constantly changing ways in which people consume media and celebrate fandom.

Another measure is television viewership and ratings. Determining the number of people who have enough interest to watch the sport on television should be a relatively good measure of popularity, although even those measures need context to make any sense. On one hand, local television ratings remain strong during the season, indicating relatively widespread support for the game. On the other hand, the ratings for this season’s World Series between the Boston Red Sox and Los Angeles Dodgers were not good.

Consider a couple of headlines. Like Boston-LA World Series Struck Out Looking for Fox from the LA Times and like The 2018 World Series was Good for the Red Sox–and Bad for Baseball from The Atlantic. Even commissioner Rob Manfred acknowledged disappointment with the ratings after the first few games.

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For the second straight year, the Dodgers’ season has ended in a World Series appearance but not a World Series victory. While the Red Sox’ four-games-to-one win might show up in history as something of a blowout, the Dodgers were one key hit away from victory in Game One. If they’d also held onto a fifth-inning lead in Game Two and an eighth-inning lead in Game Four, we’d be talking about a great Dodgers team finally winning it all.

It didn’t happen that way, though — and it wasn’t because the Red Sox wanted it more or because the Dodgers’ analytics failed them. Sometimes baseball happens. It happened to the Dodgers, and in the end, the more deserving team won.

Win or lose, the Dodgers were going to face a lot of questions this offseason. Here are the four most-pressing questions in need of an answer.

Bring Back Clayton Kershaw?

Clayton Kershaw could make the decision easy for everyone by not opting out of the two years and $65 million he has left on his contract. There are plenty of concerns with Kershaw: his velocity has declined and he’s relying on his slider more than ever. The future Hall of Famer will begin next season at 31 years old, hardly an elder, but certainly past his prime. Despite those concerns, Kershaw started 31 games in 2018 and pitched 191.1 innings, including the postseason. His ERA and FIP, including the playoffs, were 2.96, and 3.31, respectively. Those are both very good numbers along with his 3.6 WAR from the regular season. Among pending free-agent pitchers, only Patrick Corbin had a better season — and Kershaw showed he could still get outs at a high rate with declining velocity.

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In Game Five of the World Series on Sunday night, behind a stifling seven-inning, three-hit effort from David Price — on three days of rest, even — and a pair of home runs by Steve Pearce, the Red Sox completed their dismantling of the Dodgers with a 5-1 victory and a four-games-to-one Series win. Like the other games in the series, this one was close for a while. Ultimately, though, the Red Sox pulled away late, with the Dodgers unable to produce a run beyond David Freese’s leadoff homer in the bottom of the first inning. On top of their franchise-record 108 wins, the Red Sox went 11-3 in the postseason, losing just one game in each round of the playoffs. They’ll take their place among the most dominant championship teams of recent vintage, and have a claim as the best in franchise history.

To these eyes, the World Series turned on eight factors, areas that set the Red Sox apart from the Dodgers in what was, at times, a fairly close series that will nonetheless look rather lopsided in the history books.

Two-Out Damage

Continuing what they did against the Astros in the ALCS, the Red Sox scored the majority of their runs against the Dodgers with two outs. In fact, the totals and rates in the two rounds match up almost exactly: 18 out of 29 runs scored against Houston (62.0%) and 18 of 28 against Los Angeles (64.3%). In the World Series they hit .242/.347/.484 in 72 plate appearances with two outs and put up video-game numbers — .471/.609/.882 in 23 PA — with two outs and runners in scoring position. Their OPS in that latter situation set a World Series record:

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We talk all the time about whether or not the playoffs crown the best team in baseball. Is it more important to be the best team for six months, or is it more important to be the best team for one month? What are we even celebrating, anyway? When you look at the playoffs too hard, and when the playoffs tell a different story than the regular season, it can be difficult to know what to think. You can start to think about these things more than they were ever intended to be thought about. It’s deeply unfulfilling. I can speak from experience.

This year, we get a break. We get a break from having to overthink the tournament, and having to compare it against everything we saw before. The Red Sox won the World Series in five games over the Dodgers. The Red Sox had led all of baseball with 108 wins. In the first two playoff rounds, they eliminated the two other teams that reached triple digits. My favorite standings fact: For true talent, I prefer to look at run differential, or BaseRuns. The four best teams in the regular season were the Astros, Red Sox, Dodgers, and Yankees. The Red Sox knocked out the Yankees, the Astros, and the Dodgers, in order. They lost only one game in each round. Their playoff record was 11-3. Only three champions in the wild-card era have lost fewer games. The Red Sox did that against incredible competition.

All things considered, the Red Sox were the best team of 2018. They presented a lot of the evidence from March through September, and then in October, they made a convincing closing argument. It was what happened in October that turned this from a great team into maybe the greatest Red Sox team in history. By winning the championship, the Red Sox accomplished as much as they possibly could. And there’s something about the title run that’s striking to me. In terms of execution, the playoff Red Sox played almost flawless baseball. Yet they were largely carried by their supporting cast.

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The ZiPS projection system will update these tables after every game and as the starting-pitcher probables change. They are based on the up-to-date ZiPS projections of the strengths of the teams and the projected starting pitchers. They are different than the playoff odds that appear elsewhere at this site. The FanGraphs playoff probabilities are based on 10,000 simulations using the updated projections in the depth charts. Where ZiPS differs is by guessing the game-by-game starting-pitcher matchups and using the ZiPS projections, including split projections.

First, here are the game-by-game probabilities:

And here are the overall series probabilities.

It would take some doing to have a more difficult postseason on either side of the ball, particularly at a pivotal time in one’s career, than Yasmani Grandal has had. As the Dodgers’ starting catcher during the regular season, the switch-hitting 29-year-old (who turns 30 on November 8) hit for power, showed typically excellent plate discipline, and stood out as one of the game’s best pitch-framers. Alas, he’s looked hapless this month, and between some bad breaks defensively and a deepening offensive slump, he’s lost his starting job for the second straight postseason. As a pending free agent, he could be headed for a rough winter, though he should get at least another shot to help the Dodgers overcome their two-games-to-none deficit in the World Series.

In his seventh season in the majors and fourth with the Dodgers, Grandal hit a solid .241/.349/.466 with 24 homers for a 125 wRC+. The last mark was the best of his career as a regular (he posted a 144 wRC+ in 226 PA as a rookie in 2012) and one point shy of the Marlins’ J.T. Realmuto, who was the the majors’ best among catchers. Admittedly, his season was streaky. Here’s how it looked by month, straight from our splits:

Holy fluctuating BABIPs! I haven’t shown his ISOs (SLG – AVG), but you can do the mental math; he swung from two straight months in the .160s to a July with a .364 ISO. About the only thing he did with consistency was knock the ball out of the park. He even had a month (June) where he drew just four walks. On a rolling average basis, however, Grandal wasn’t much streaker than he’d been in 2017, when he hit .247/.308/.459 for a more modest 102 wRC+. Here are his last three seasons by 15-game rolling wOBA (15-game Rolling wOBA is also the name of my new band):

 
That’s a bit of a rollercoaster ride, but not one that’s especially more dramatic than that of the similarly offensively productive Realmuto, who had a 107 wRC+ in 2017 and a 111 mark (to Grandal’s 116) in 2016:

 
Realmuto had just one calendar month in 2018 with a wRC+ lower than 100 (79 in August), but he also had a drastic first half/second half split (147 before the All-Star break, 99 after) whereas Grandal was somehow Mr. Consistency in that regard (124 and 126). Go figure.

By our version of catcher defense, which does not include pitch framing, Grandal was nine runs above average en route to 3.6 WAR, second among all catchers behind Realmuto’s 4.8. By Defensive Runs Saved, he ranked ninth out of 47 qualifiers with nine runs above average, including 10 above average in terms of framing (rSZ). By Baseball Prospectus’ numbers, he was an MLB-high 15.7 above average in framing and 17.7 runs above average overall, second to Jeff Mathis‘ 18.2. By BP’s other components of catcher defense, he was 0.8 runs above average in pitch blocking (preventing passed balls and wild pitches), ranking 22nd out of 82 catchers with at least 1,000 framing chances. (For reference, the top-to-bottom spread there was just 8.2 runs.) He was 0.1 runs above average in terms of throwing out baserunners, which either ranked 30th (as displayed on the page) or was in a 21-way virtual tie for 15th (there’s no second decimal place shown) in a category where the top-to-bottom spread is all of 1.9 runs.

By BP’s numbers, Grandal’s 2018 defense was his worst season out of his past four in total but just the second in that span in which he was average or better in framing, blocking, and throwing in the same season:

In other words, there were no particular red flags about his defense heading into the postseason. And yet in the small-sample spotlight, he had a nightmarish NLCS against the Brewers, after a relatively quiet Division Series in which he caught every inning against the Braves without either a wild pitch or a passed ball, and threw out the only stolen base attempt against him.

Grandal’s troubles began in the first inning of Game 1 of the NLCS, with Clayton Kershaw on the mound. With Lorenzo Cain on first, he lost a low slider to Christian Yelich:

The ball didn’t get far but it was enough to advance Cain, whom Kershaw eventually stranded. Two innings later, with one out, men on first and second and Jesus Aguilar at the plate, another Kershaw slider squirted past him, with both runners advancing.

Two pitches later, Aguilar hit a screaming liner that first baseman David Freese dove and caught, but home plate umpire Scott Barry ruled that Grandal had interfered with his swing, and Freese was awarded first base. Cain then scored on an Hernan Perez fly ball, which would have been an inning-ender had Aguilar’s lineout been allowed to stand; the throw home from center fielder Cody Bellinger clanked off Grandal’s glove, allowing both runners to advance and costing the catcher his second error of the inning (the catcher’s interference having been the first).

Thus Grandal became the first catcher in postseason history to complete the trifecta of an error, an interference, and a passed ball in a single inning. Though Kershaw limited the damage in those two innings to a pair of runs, they loomed large in what became a 6-5 loss.

Backup Austin Barnes caught Game 2, but Grandal returned to catch Walker Buehler in Game 3. With the Dodgers trailing 1-0 and Travis Shaw having smacked a two-out triple, the 24-year-old righty bounced a knuckle curve on the plate that Grandal couldn’t come up with, as Shaw scored.

With one out in the eighth, and Shaw facing Alex Wood with Ryan Braun on first base, Grandal simply failed to catch a 91.9 mph fastball that missed its mark; Braun advanced but did not score.

Grandal has caught just eight innings since; two apiece in NLCS Games 4 and 6, with the balance coming in the two World Series games after entering as a pinch-hitter. In that limited time, he’s been party to another couple of wild pitches. In the seventh inning of Game 6, he caught Kenta Maeda with the Dodgers down 5-2. When the Brewers put runners on second and third with two outs, the lead became 6-2 after Maeda bounced a slider near the front left-hand corner of the plate that ricocheted away from Grandal. Aguilar scored and Mike Moustakas took third. In Game 2 of the World Series, with the Dodgers down 4-2, Grandal blocked a Scott Alexander slider in the right-hand batter’s box; Mookie Betts, who was on second, sped to third but didn’t score.

All told, that’s three passed balls, three wild pitches, a catcher’s interference and an error catching a throw on Grandal’s watch. By the Win Probability Added calculations in our play logs, the eight plays add up to -0.245 WPA for the Dodgers’. About half of that came on wild pitches (0.107 on Shaw scoring, 0.026 on Aguilar scoring, 0.003 on Betts advancing) — plays where that the official scorer judged Grandal not to be the primary culprit — but that’s still gonna leave a mark.

Meanwhile, Grandal has hit .120/.241/.280 in 29 plate appearances, with four walks and 12 strikeouts; two of his three hits have gone for extra bases. After striking out three times in four PAs in Game 1 of the NLDS, he homered off Anibal Sanchez in Game 2, walked three times in four plate appearances in Game 3 (he was batting eighth) and went 0-for-5 with two strikeouts in Game 4. He went 1-for-4 with two strikeouts in Game 1 of the NLCS, his defensive game from hell, grounded into a bases-loaded double play as a pinch-hitter in Game 2, and went 1-for-4 with a fifth-inning double (off Jhoulys Chacin) and three strikeouts in Game 3, the last with one out and the bases loaded in the ninth. In his four subsequent pinch-hitting appearances, he’s 0-for-3 with a walk, which was drawn off Ryan Brasier to load the bases in the seventh inning of Game 1 of the World Series.

All told, Grandal has the sixth-lowest WPA of the postseason from an offensive standpoint, though he doesn’t even have the lowest mark on his team:

Meanwhile, Barnes is just 2-for-22 with -0.121 WPA int he postseason, that after hitting a disappointing .205/.329/.290 (77 wRC+) in 238 PA, down from .289/.408/.486 (142 wRC+) lasts year. A good framer (8.3 runs above average) and blocker (1.0 runs) but subpar thrower (-0.2 runs) according to BP’s metrics, he’s thrown out two out of five runners attempting to steal, but was unable to stop the changeup that Ryan Madson bounced in front of the plate on his first pitch upon entering the World Series opener, with both runners advancing and later scoring.

Grandal started 110 games behind the plate in 2018 and 113 in 2017, but this is the second straight October that he’s taken a back seat in the postseason. Last year, he went into a tailspin over the final two months of the season while understandably distracted by his wife’s high-risk pregnancy that culminated with the birth of his son on the eve of the World Series; Grandal traveled back and forth to his wife in Arizona on off days, sometimes making five-hour drives on back-to-back days. He started just twice in the postseason, going 0-for-8 with three walks while Barnes made 13 starts and hit .217/.288/.326 in 52 PA. Grandal now owns a dismal .099/.256/.197 line in 87 postseason plate appearances, all with the Dodgers. Among players with at least 75 postseason PA since 1969, only one has a lower batting average (Dan Wilson at .091) and only two have a lower slugging percentage (Wilson at .102 and Mike Bordick at .174).

As reported by the Orange County Register’s Bill Plunkett, Grandal credited the Brewers for holding him in check but blamed himself for “a horrendous job by continuing to not make an adjustment” at the plate. As for the defense, he struggled to accept the notion that he’s in some kind of slump:

“How much control do I have on a ball that hits the dirt? That’s the best way I can put it. … How many guys did I throw out during the two series? If you’re strictly basing a defensive slump off of three blocks that could have gone either way, three blocks that I talked to three, four other catchers about and they’ve all told me the same thing – if you go off of those three, then I guess you can say I’m in a slump.”

The catcher did say that after reviewing video of Game 1, he was too “flat-footed” in his setup, which affected his positioning in blocking a ball, but that he had fixed that issue. In his view, the bounces just haven’t gone his way:

“You’ve got one of the best defensive catchers in the game in [Gold Glove winner] Martin Maldonado and he’s blocking balls where they hit him dead on, the way it should be hitting, and the balls going other places. You’ve got [Brewers catcher] Erik Kratz, same thing in L.A. Ball hits him perfectly and it goes somewhere else. There’s nothing you can control as soon as that ball hits the dirt.”

Before Game 1 of the World Series, manager Dave Roberts said he anticipated starting Grandal at some point and was looking for the right matchup. With Barnes not hitting and with righty Rick Porcello on the mound, Game 3 would be a good spot. Grandal has been considerably stronger while batting from the left side of the plate, with a 120 wRC+ over the past three seasons and a 131 mark this year; he’s at 103 for 2016-2018 and 106 for this year from the right side. Via Statcast, he had a .447 wOBA against fastballs from righties this year, .365 for those 95 mph or faster (relevant for a potential Nathan Eovaldi start in Game 4).

As to what lies beyond this World Series, the assumption is that Grandal won’t be back in L.A., given that the Dodgers have, according to our own Kiley McDaniel, “two of the top three catching prospects in the game waiting in the upper levels” in Keibert Ruiz and Will Smith. They may need a stopgap to pair with Barnes in 2019, but don’t seem likely to make a multiyear commitment to Grandal, who will share top billing among the free agent catchers with Wilson Ramos.

Ramos has been slightly better hitter over the past three seasons (120 wRC+ to Grandal’s 116), albeit in about 300 fewer PA, but not nearly in Grandal’s class as a defender (79 runs above average to 6 via BP’s metrics, 39 to -11 via DRS). While the industry consensus is that Grandal may have cost himself money with his play this October, he’s 15 months younger and more durable than Ramos. He’s averaged 128 games per year to Ramos’ 104 over the past five seasons, and has had one knee surgery (2013) to Ramos’ two (2012 and 2016) — though he did also have A/C joint surgery in 2015.

We’ll have more to say on those two free agents — and all the others — after the World Series, of course. For now, we’ll see if Grandal can do anything to reverse the course of a very rough October.