Yordan Alvarez is an imposing figure in the batter’s box. The lefty stands 6-foot-5, towering over home plate with his knees bent and bat coiled, simply daring the pitcher to throw him a pitch in the zone while having the patience to spit at pitches not to his liking. With his toothpick-gnawing manager, Dusty Baker, looking on from the dugout, I couldn’t help but be reminded of another hitter from Baker’s past who led him to his only other World Series appearance back in 2002. No other hitter is quite like Barry Bonds, but Alvarez has been a treat to watch with his impressive blend of patience (18.6% walk rate) and power (.353 ISO). He earned ALCS MVP honors after going 12-for-23 with five extra base hits, and he capped off the series with a massive 4-for-4 night in the decisive Game 6 to knock the Red Sox out of the playoffs and advance to the World Series:

Game 6 was a microcosm of his performance all postseason: roasting extra base hits from line to line, whether he’s seeing offspeed pitches at the knees or high-90s fastballs painted on the outside corner. Here’s how his performance has staked up against other hitters this October:

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Curtis Mead has emerged as one of the most-intriguing prospects in the Tampa Bay Rays system. A native of Adelaide, Australia who is celebrating his 21st birthday today, the right-handed-hitting infielder is coming off an eye-opening season where he slashed .321/.378/.533. Playing primarily at the two A-ball levels, Mead swatted 38 doubles and 15 home runs while putting up a 141 wRC+. He’s currently with the Arizona Fall League’s Scottsdale Scorpions, where he has nine hits, including a pair of long balls, in 30 at-bats.

Mead discussed his ascent from Australian teenager to fast-rising prospect toward the tail end of the minor-league season.

———

David Laurila: You were signed out of Australia by the Phillies. How did that come about?

Curtis Mead: “I’d just turned 17 and was a development player for our local team in Australia. The team wasn’t going very well, and our second baseman was struggling. He was an older guy, 26, and I was a young guy doing all the right things; I was getting there early and putting in the hard work, so with the team having such a bad first half, our coach made the decision to play some of the younger guys. I ended up playing the back 20 of a 40-game season, and hit [.373].

“After the season, I played in the Under-18 National Tournament, which is held in Sydney. Everyone comes in from all the [Australian] States, and I carried that form over from the ABL; I ended up winning the MVP of that tournament. That kind of got me noticed. I’d say anywhere from five to 10 scouts spoke to my parents after the tournament. That made me realize, ‘Holy crap, this is something I could do.’

“In April — in our offseason — [Team Australia CEO] Glenn Williams created a baseball team of 16-to-18-year-olds to go to Arizona. The trip was kind of to show you the college experience; we walked college campuses, we trained on college fields. We also got the opportunity to play extended teams in the minors, so we got a lot of exposure to both college scouts and professional scouts. I was able to showcase my skills, and got really close with probably two or three teams. I ended up signing with the Phillies in May of 2018, at 17 years old.”

Laurila: Which other teams did you come close the signing with? Read the rest of this entry »

In Game 6 of the ALCS, en route to clinching the American League pennant for the third time in five years, the Astros received quite the start from Luis Garcia. As a team hampered by rotation issues, issues only accentuated by the injury to Lance McCullers Jr. in the ALDS, Houston needed someone other than Framber Valdez to step up and perform. Non-Valdez starters had recorded just 12 measly outs in Games 2 through 4; in retrospect, the Astros were probably lucky to have come away with even one of those games.

After a brilliant Valdez start to put Houston up three-games-to-two, it was once again Garcia’s turn to get the ball. The team’s No. 3 starter during the regular season, he had been productive all year but exited Game 2 of the ALCS with an injury; Garcia’s fastball velocity in his second inning of work was down almost 4 mph relative to his first inning mark. On Friday, though, the script was completely flipped: Garcia was airing it out. After only throwing one 97 mph pitch the entire regular season, he recorded eight against Boston. His 5 2/3 shutout innings, allowing just one hit and one walk, made him the most valuable Houston player of the evening, with a +.308 WPA. That type of performance is a necessity if the Astros want to triumph over the Braves and win the World Series.

In the midst of his excellent outing, there was a lot of oohing and aahing over Garcia’s velocity. As ESPN’s Jeff Passan tweeted during the game, Garcia’s stuff was “ticking way, way, way up.” For those counting at home, that’s three “way”s, and deservedly so. Garcia threw the five fastest pitches of his career in Game 6; he has thrown the eight fastest pitches of his career all in the postseason (seven in Game 6, one against the Rays last year). The righty averaged just 93.3 mph on his four-seamer during the regular season, but in Game 6, he averaged 96.0. That average fastball velocity was 1.4 mph faster than his highest average in any other outing this season (94.6 mph, April 12). He was amped up. Read the rest of this entry »

For the first two installments of this feature, I graded the postseason performance of two managers per article. This time, I’m sure you were expecting the same: the losing managers for the ALCS and NLCS lined up for some random internet writer to opine on their faults. That’s still basically the idea here, but I’ll be honest: I didn’t feel like fitting a chance to enumerate Dave Roberts’ strange decision-making into only half an article. That main course is still to come; for now, you’ll just have to settle for an accounting of Alex Cora’s playoff acumen.

Lineups/Pinch Hitting

Grade: A-
The Red Sox aren’t built for versatility. By the end of the season, they mostly plugged in their best hitters and let them go to work. An injury to J.D. Martinez meant even less flexibility in several early games. Even so, I liked some of the small moves Cora made to extract a tiny bit of extra value from his lineup.

When Boston faced a lefty pitcher, Enrique Hernández led off, with Kyle Schwarber batting second. Against righties, that order was flipped. That might seem like a small thing, but I like that it always keeps a starter from having a (relatively) easy matchup when the order turns over for a third time. If you’re trying to get extra outs from your starter, you’ll be doing it at a disadvantage. And if you pull your starter, the second batter your reliever faces will have the platoon edge anyway. Read the rest of this entry »

The Fall Classic is here, the 117th World Series, which will end with the Commissioner’s Trophy and a stage with room for just one victorious organization. Two supremely talented teams are at the end of an eight-month gauntlet — one that began with the singular, casual, quiet pop of catchers’ mitts in Florida and will end in a pressure cooker, with screaming masses and the attention of the sports world, as the AL champion Astros, in their third World Series of the last five years, will face the NL champion Braves in their first since 1999.

It’s been a mixed, inconsistent decade for Atlanta in the post-Bobby Cox era. The franchise’s 15-year reign over the NL East, which it won every year from 1991 to 2005 except for the strike-shortened ‘94 season, holds a unique place in the baseball culture. Anyone over 30 saw most of it unfold every day on cable if they wanted to — my ex-brother-in-law grew up in Pennsylvania with Andres Galarraga’s number painted in Wite-Out on his fitted cap — thanks to the club’s presence on TBS. The Braves’ 22-year World Series drought hasn’t been entirely hapless, and they have had stretches of contention, making the next six postseasons after their ’99 sweep at the hands of the Yankees, even as some of that core aged and/or moved on. Fittingly enough, the final two seasons of their division champions streak ended with postseason losses to the Astros, in both the 2004 (Carlos Beltran’s Godtober) and ’05 (Clemens, Oswalt, Pettitte) NLDS; so too did their tenure on TBS, which concluded with a 3–0 loss in Houston at the end of the 2007 regular season.

Then came, relatively speaking, a swoon. The Freddie Freeman/Brian McCann/Jason Heyward/Andrelton Simmons core drove the Braves to four consecutive 89-win or better seasons from 2010 to ’14, but that group won just two postseason games during that stretch. It was during this time period that Cox retired and a brief descent to the bottom of the division began. The arrival of the current core (Ozzie Albies, Dansby Swanson, Ronald Acuña Jr., etc.) has put them back on top of the NL East for the last four years, and they’ve slowly crept deeper and deeper into the postseason, culminating in this year’s pennant.

Those Astros postseason victories in 2004 and ’05 marked the tail end of Houston’s “Killer B’s” era, dominated by Craig Biggio, Jeff Bagwell, Lance Berkman, and others (Billy Wagner, Moises Alou, Octavio Dotel… these teams were absolutely stacked). Houston finished over .500 ten times in eleven years before losing the NLCS to Albert Pujols and the Cardinals in ’04 and the World Series to the White Sox in ’05 and slowly beginning a fall from grace, both on and off the field. Jeff Luhnow was hired away from the Cardinals front office to helm an intense rebuild that included three consecutive 100-loss seasons, and the draft picks from that stretch produced Carlos Correa, Lance McCullers Jr., Kyle Tucker, and Alex Bregman … as well as the Brady Aiken controversy that would pale in comparison to what lay ahead for the franchise.

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Position: Analyst, Integrative Sports Performance

Description:
The Milwaukee Brewers Integrative Sports Performance department is looking to fill one (1) analyst position based in Phoenix, AZ for the 2022 Major League baseball season. The Integrative Sports Performance department is part of the larger Brewers Player Personnel Operations and work in conjunction with Strength & Conditioning, Player Development, Research & Development, and Medical to better serve our athletes. We desire candidates who exhibit a passion for player development through strong interpersonal skills and effective application of knowledge. Read the rest of this entry »

Please note, this posting contains two positions.

The Chicago Cubs Baseball Operations and Player Development Departments are seeking to potentially fill positions in the pre-identified areas below. The timeline to fill each position may vary and will be prioritized based on qualified candidate credentials. Candidates who thrive in a fast-paced, collaborative environment and possess excellent communication skills with a strong attention to detail are encouraged to apply.

Position: Baseball Operations Fellow

Location: Chicago, IL

Responsibilities:

• Work with other members of Major League Operations during the 2022 season, providing daily support to various Baseball Operations functions.
• Perform research and analysis in support of Major League Operations including salary arbitration, contracts, roster transactions and management, budget analysis and rules compliance.
• Work alongside the amateur and pro scouting departments in advance of the Rule 4 Draft, trade deadline and other key transaction periods.
• Carry out pre-game and in-game duties as assigned by the Advanced Scouting and Research and Development departments.

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We have a hard time making ourselves feel it when probability offers good news. Going into Saturday’s NLCS Game 6, our ZiPS postseason game-by-game odds gave the Braves a 71.4% chance of advancing to the World Series. They had largely outplayed the Dodgers. Max Muncy and Justin Turner were still sidelined, and Joe Kelly had just joined them. Max Scherzer had been scratched with arm fatigue, leaving Walker Buehler to start on short rest. Game 7 might mean a bullpen game for Los Angeles, if there were a Game 7 at all. The Dodgers were up against it; the Braves, at worst, had another shot.

That is what we knew; feeling it was another matter. After all, the Dodgers had won 18 more regular-season games than the Braves, and in a harder division. They were riding a seven-game win streak in postseason elimination games, including an 11–2 drubbing in Game 5 to stay alive. Atlanta had dealt with injuries of its own, and this series had so far followed 2020’s pattern, causing an itchy bit of worry in the back of Braves fans’ minds as they remembered going up three-games-to-one in last year’s NLCS only to have Los Angeles claw its way back in Game 5 and take the next two. Ian Anderson, the Braves’ Game 6 starter, had only managed three innings in Game 2; Atlanta won, but he’d walked three and allowed two runs, and then there were all those bad first innings to think of. What if Eddie Rosario’s bat cooled? What if Chris Taylor’s didn’t? Read the rest of this entry »

Tyler Glasnow deliverers his high-octane fastball with a standard four-seam grip. That hasn’t always been the case. Back in his Little League days, the Tampa Bay Rays right-hander relied on an extra digit when throwing a baseball.

“I used to throw my heater with three fingers on top,” explained Glasnow, who at 6-foot-8 has grown exponentially since those formative years. “One time I was throwing to one of the coaches with my three-finger grip, and he was, ‘Whoa. That’s weird. Try throwing with two fingers.’ I did, and I think the movement got a little better, and I threw it a bit harder, but I couldn’t throw it for strikes. So I stayed with that three-finger approach for a little bit — a four-seam grip with three fingers — and then as my hands got bigger, I went to two fingers.”

His curveball is another story. Glasnow told me that he first began throwing a breaker around his sophomore year of high school… or maybe it was prior to that? He’s not entirely sure. When I suggested that age-12 isn’t uncommon, the So. Cal native said that may well have been the case. Read the rest of this entry »

The Astros are heading to their third World Series in the last five years, besting the Red Sox, 5–0, on Friday night to finish the ALCS in six games. The Red Sox had the pitcher they wanted on the mound in Nathan Eovaldi, but the offense they needed never materialized as Houston’s starter, Luis Garcia, pitched 5 2/3 masterful innings, striking out seven against just a single walk and one lonely hit.

As one of the first front offices to go all-in on modern analytics, Houston has long been an organization that takes glee in upending conventional wisdom. Despite a rotation torn apart long-term by veteran departures and short-term with an injury to Lance McCullers Jr. (and what possibly looked like one to Garcia), the Astros stymied Boston’s lineup. Pitching woes, schmitching woes; despite the very reasonable worries about the rotation, they limited the dangerous Red Sox offense to three runs over the final three games.

Everyone likes tales of comebacks or redemption, and Garcia, one of the AL Rookie of the Year favorites, provided a good one. He got knocked out in the third inning of his first start this postseason, giving up five runs against the White Sox in Houston’s lone ALDS loss. The follow-up performance didn’t go any better: the Red Sox scored five runs off of him before he was removed with a knee strain in the second inning.

Some teams would have been a little uneasy about starting Garcia in Game 6, but one of the reasons the Astros are in position to win another World Series championship is that they put a lot of faith in the young pitching talent that remained after most of their big-name starting pitching was gone. As with the Rays and their never-ending supply of nameless relievers who become all-world or the White Sox going with Carlos Rodón in Game 4 of the ALDS, there’s a lot of appeal in sticking with the people that got you here. There would have been second-guessing and what-ifs about not acquiring a J.A. Happ type a few months ago if Garcia had again struggled. But he didn’t, and while this wasn’t John Smoltz facing off against Jack Morris in the World Series, he dominated Boston’s offense in his 5 2/3 one-hit innings.

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