BOSTON — The American League Wild Card matchup that few fanbases wanted turned out to be… well, not quite everything that anyone could have asked for. There were big plays and some sixth-inning drama, but by no means did it qualify as a Red Sox-Yankees classic. As much as anything, it was an Alex Cora-managed team showing that it was worthy of a postseason berth despite the skepticism that came with an up-and-down second half. In front of 38,324 fans at Fenway Park, Boston beat New York by a score of 6-2 Tuesday night.

The tone was set early.

Giancarlo Stanton came into the game with a .389/.451/.689 slash line and a 208 wRC+ in 102 career plate appearances at Fenway Park. He’d gone deep six times, and two outs into the first inning it looked like that number would become seven. Stanton certainly seemed to think so; standing in the box, he briefly admired what ended up being a 345-foot single — exit velo 94.8 mph — off the Green Monster. Joey Gallo then fanned to end the inning.

The top half served as an omen. Instead of an early New York lead, the game remained scoreless. But not for long. With a runner on in the bottom half, Xander Bogaerts blasted a Gerrit Cole offering 427 feet into the center field bleachers, a bomb that was preceded by a bit of mano-a-mano electricity. Rafael Devers swung out of his shoes early in the count during his at-bat, and the veteran right-hander responded by buzzing him with a fastball on the next pitch. Undaunted, the young slugger kept his composure and worked the Yankees ace for what turned out to be a fruitful walk. Read the rest of this entry »

Editor’s Note: You can find the Dodgers and Cardinals Wild Card rosters and announced lineups here and here.

While it’s not the blood rivalry Yankees-Red Sox pairing of the AL Wild Card Game, the NL Wild Card matchup does not lack for story lines. The Dodgers are the reigning World Series winners, and despite tying the franchise record for wins (106), finishing with the majors’ best run differential (+269) and outperforming last year’s 43–17 juggernaut over their final 60 (45–15), they finished second to the upstart Giants by a single game, ending their eight-year run of NL West titles. They’re just the third 100-win team to wind up as a Wild Card, after the 2002 A’s (102 wins), who didn’t have to play a do-or-die game, and the 2018 Yankees (100 wins), who won theirs. That their season comes down to a single game despite their dominance over the long haul is either evidence that the current playoff format needs overhaul or that it’s perfect as is; you’re guaranteed to hear both points of view somewhere in the run-up to the game, and probably during and after as well.

The Cardinals (90-72) are the upstart comeback kids. Beset by injuries to an already-thin rotation, they were just 51–51 at the July 30 trade deadline, and their acquisitions of the well-shellacked Jon Lester and J.A. Happ drew more snickers than raves. They were below .500 as late as August 8 (55–56), at which point their Playoff Odds were a season-low 1.3%. Thanks in significant part to the league’s strongest defense and a suddenly-lively offense, they went 35–16 the rest of the way, better than all but the Giants (36–14) and Dodgers (39–11). While they were still just 69–68 as late as September 7, they embarked upon a 17-game winning streak, the longest in franchise history and in the NL since the 1935 Cubs won 21. The streak turned what looked to be a hectic five-team race for the second Wild Card spot into a laugher; St. Louis won going away, clinching on September 28 and outdoing the next-closest team, the Reds, by seven games. The 2.8% odds the Cardinals had on September 7 now stand as the lowest September mark of any team that has rallied to make the playoffs since 2014.

Beyond all of that and a marquee pitching matchup between Max Scherzer and Adam Wainwright, there’s the inevitable discussion of these two teams crossing paths in the postseason, where the Cardinals have gotten the upper hand four out of five times, leaving Dodgers fans smarting in the 1985 NLCS (Ozzie Smith, Jack Clark, Tom Niedenfuer) and the 2013 NLCS and ’14 NLDS (Clayton Kershaw, Hanley Ramirez, Matt Carpenter, and so on). That Kershaw wouldn’t have been the choice to start this one — he’s on the sidelines for October due to yet another bout of forearm discomfort — might only partially quell the anxiety of Dodgers fans given the continued presence of Wainwright and Yadier Molina. Oh, and Albert Pujols is here, too, albeit on the other side of the equation.

For as rich as those storylines may be, they’re not the same as actual analysis. There’s only so much one can do for a single game, but it’s worth touching on a few points. Read the rest of this entry »

There was a moment on Sunday when Randy Arozarena had just stolen second base in the eighth inning of a scoreless game. Wander Franco stood at the plate while Nelson Cruz waited in the on-deck circle; the Yankees hadn’t yet recorded an out. Meanwhile, 250 miles down I-95, the Nationals had just wrapped up a three-run fifth, pushing their lead over Boston to four runs. Making his major league debut, effectively wild youngster Joan Adon struck out Rafael Devers on perhaps his best breaking ball of the day. The Blue Jays were cruising. This was the moment when extra baseball felt most likely. Perhaps not All of the Extra Baseball, because of the Mariners’ deficit against the Angels, but some. Instead, to the annoyance of baseball hipsters everywhere, we’re left with a boring ol’ Yankees/Red Sox playoff game at Fenway Park featuring two Cy Young candidates.

This is only the second time the two franchises have met in the postseason since their heated, knuckleball-crushing, curse-breaking epic tilts of the early 2000s, with the other coming when Boston dispatched the Yankees 3-to-1 in the 2018 ALDS, a series that featured many of the same players we’ll see Tuesday, though not the ones directly involved in that series’ extracurricular activity. It feels like we see these teams play one another on national TV constantly (it’s convenient to haul equipment from Bristol, Connecticut to either Boston or New York), but they’ve only faced off six times in the last two-and-a-half months. The Yankees won all of those games, including the last two in dramatic fashion (not that that means anything). Our announced starters finished the season ranked one-two in American League pitcher WAR: Gerrit Cole is set to take the mound for New York, while Boston will start 11-year veteran Nathan Eovaldi. Here are your starting pitcher scouting reports:

Read the rest of this entry »

Saturday afternoon, Corbin Burnes made several uncharacteristic missteps. He walked Max Muncy on five pitches, only the 34th walk he’d issued all year. The next batter, Justin Turner, deposited a 3-1 cutter into the left field stands for a three-run home run, only the seventh Burnes had allowed all season.

He pitched another inning without incident, then — back in the lead in the ERA race after briefly falling behind Max Scherzer — came out of the game for good, his regular season now complete. That ineffective outing might worry Brewers fans for the playoffs, but it also emphasized how spectacular the rest of his year has been. Surrendering a walk and a home run? It happens to everyone — batters hit 5,944 homers this season, third-most in history, and walked roughly 9% of the time they came to the plate. But it doesn’t happen to Burnes — and that’s why he deserves to win the NL Cy Young this year.

There’s no single criteria for the most outstanding pitcher in the National League, but in my eyes, Burnes has claims on several axes, and no real warts. More than that, his 2021 season is a towering achievement, one that we’ll hear about in 20 years when we talk about the best pitching seasons in history. Read the rest of this entry »

Like the majority of the people reading this, I spent my weekend doing little other than watching baseball. The possibilities for real chaos were endless, and while none of the various bingo balls fell our way for a meaningful game on Monday, the season still ended with plenty of drama and interesting tidbits.

Clayton Kershaw Walks Off The Mound

In the midst of the exciting games with all sorts of playoff implications, it was a jarring moment when Kershaw came out of Friday night’s start against Milwaukee with what is being described as forearm discomfort. Based on both his and Dave Roberts’ post-game comments, whatever is going on with one of the best left arms in the history of the game is not good, and his 2021 season is likely over. As far as his Dodgers career, that’s still to be determined; his contract expires after the final out of the World Series.

The No. 7 pick in the 2006 draft out of a high school in the northern suburbs of Dallas, Kershaw came onto my radar that summer, when a veteran scout told me that he was the best pitcher at the complex level he’d ever seen over decades of experience. My first in-person look came the following spring during his full-season debut with Low-A Great Lakes. He reached Double-A that year as a teenager, and even though he walked nearly five batters per nine innings, much of that was the fault of minor league umpires who had no idea how to call a pure 12-to-6 curveball with more downward action than they had likely ever seen.

The first time I watched Kershaw for professional purposes came in March 2014 in a spring training game against the Padres. He was horrible, allowing nine base runners in his three innings of work; it was early, and he hadn’t ramped up. I still remember my report: “Fringy command of fringy weapons. Likely Cy Young candidate.” He’d go on to win his third in four years that season.

Read the rest of this entry »

Position: Junior Analyst, Baseball Operations

Summary:
The Baseball Operations team of the Los Angeles Dodgers is responsible for supporting the Major League Coaching Staff and Baseball Operations leadership group with data and information needed for strategic decision making. As a Junior Analyst, you will work with other members of the Baseball Operations team to build reports and visualizations to communicate insights clearly and concisely to stakeholders. This position offers the opportunity to push the boundaries of conventional thinking, grow analytically by solving challenging problems, and collaborate with some of the best baseball minds in the sport. As a member of the Baseball Operations team, you will see your work impact the Major League team on a nightly basis.

Job Functions:

• Develop and deliver reports to the Major League Coaching Staff and Baseball Operations leadership group in a timely manner
• Build new tools and improve existing ones, to optimize workflows and quality of information
• Perform ad-hoc research as requested, summarizing key findings
• Utilize statistical tools and metrics to analyze the Dodgers and upcoming opponents
• Perform other related duties as assigned

Basic Requirements/Qualifications:

• High school diploma, GED or equivalent
• Experience using R to wrangle and visualize data
• Familiarity with SQL and Git
• Knowledge of sabermetric research and principles
• Ability to work a varied schedule including evenings, weekends, and holidays
• Bachelor’s degree in a STEM field preferred
• Passion for a field outside of analytics that could be applicable to baseball (web or app development, design, or physics, to name a few) preferred

To Apply:
To apply, please use this link.

The content in this posting was created and provided solely by the Los Angeles Dodgers.

This is the sixth installment of this year’s Team Entropy series, my recurring look not only at the races for the remaining playoff spots but the potential for end-of-season chaos in the form of down-to-the-wire suspense and even tiebreakers. Ideally, we want more ties than the men’s department at Macy’s. If you’re new to this, please read the introduction here.

As noted in the boilerplate introduction above, it is the primary goal of the Team Entropy project to root for extra baseball beyond the 162-game regular season. While the complicated scenarios involving more than a single isolated head-to-head tiebreaker game may be farfetched, appreciating the sense of possibility for greater things as events unfold is part of the package. This is as much about the journey as it is the destination, which so often remains abstract. There have been just three winner-take-all tiebreaker games played since I began this project in 2011.

The secondary goal of the Team Entropy project, and part of appreciating that sense of possibility, is to have at least some portion of the playoff picture at stake on the final day of the season. On that note, we have already achieved some level of success, as we enter the final day of the 2021 season with four teams still battling for the two AL Wild Card berths — one of which is attempting to make its first postseason in 20 years — and with the NL West title still in doubt as teams with 106 and 105 wins attempt to avoid a do-or-die Wild Card game. Read the rest of this entry »

Ralph Garza Jr.’s MLB debut was both forgettable and impossible to forget. The 27-year-old right-hander took the mound for the Houston Astros in a May 29 home game against the San Diego Padres, and the circumstances were anything but ordinary. Rookies rarely get their feet wet with games hanging in the balance, and Garza entered in the 12th inning with the score knotted at eight runs apiece. Moreover, the Friars — their eventual free fall still far in the future — had won 14 of their last 16 games. A hornet’s nest awaited.

“It wasn’t your stereotypical debut,” acknowledged Garza, who two months later was designated for assignment and claimed off waivers by the Minnesota Twins. “But it’s funny, because as a reliever you’re told to always prepare for the worst. And it was something, especially against that lineup at that time. They were hot. Basically, I was being thrown into the fire. It was extras, last guy available, ‘There you go.’”

When the bullpen phone rang, he knew that his debut was nigh. It was a moment where Garza needed to remind himself to “stay calm and remember what you do, and how to do it.” Easier said than done. As the Edinburg, Texas native aptly put it, keeping one’s emotions in check when climbing a big-league bump for the first time is “like trying to tell water not to be wet.”

Garza entered with a ghost runner on second and promptly issued an intentional walk to Fernando Tatis Jr. A harmless fly-ball out followed, but soon things went south. A few pitches later, Wil Myers launched a mis-located heater into the cheap seats, turning a coming-out party into a nightmare. Garza knew it right away. Read the rest of this entry »

Quick Sunday update. The Yankees lost on Saturday, furthering the potential for chaos, and the four-way tie is an increased possibility, at 6.5%. The chances of bonus baseball overall now stand at 57.6%. Good news for us and good news for the Rays, who will play one of these four teams later this week. It’s not something that’s captured in projections, but it’s interesting that if the Rays go full B-team, it reduces the chances of a tie, and as a result, a slight reprieve for the team they eventually play. Jameson Taillon is back in as the starter and Joan Adon looks to be Washington’s starter, which is to Boston’s benefit according to the projections.

The NL West remains unresolved, but simple: if the Dodgers win and the Giants lose, they play a tiebreak game. ZiPS has a 19.8% chance of a tiebreaker game, with the overall division as San Franciso 90.0%, Los Angeles 10.0%. Freddy Peralta is being held back for the playoffs with Brett Anderson going today. It makes sense too; it’s in Milwaukee’s interest to leave one of these teams more susceptible to getting knocked out of the playoffs by the Cardinals later this week.

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Below you’ll find today’s ZiPS stretch run update. For details on just what’s going on here, please refer to my original article describing all these mathnanigans.

American League Wild Card

The Yankees and their bats were largely quiet against the Rays on Friday, but they still basically control their own destiny as the team in the first Wild Card spot, albeit the one with by far the toughest opposition. The Blue Jays fended off a late-inning Baltimore rally and held on to the win, but the Red Sox winning was just as damaging to Toronto’s playoff hopes as the Jays’ win was helpful. Toronto’s still one-in-five to make the postseason, but needs some help now; since the Blue Jays are already assumed to be strongly favored to beat the Orioles, they get an even larger boost from a Nationals win. Read the rest of this entry »

The Mariners are entering the final weekend of the regular season with their best shot since 2016 at breaking their infamous postseason drought, having gone 18–8 in September and won 11 of their last 13 games after losing a crucial series to the Red Sox mid-month. Earlier this morning, Jay Jaffe took a look at the bigger picture for the Mariners, their negative run differential, and the historic positive turn of their playoff odds. But this climb up the standings wouldn’t have been possible if it weren’t for some unheralded performances by a number of players on their roster.

From a season-long perspective, the Mariners’ offense has been lackluster, with a wRC+ of 94, ranking tenth in the American League. That went up to 103 in September, but the driving force behind the improved offense has been excellent performance in tight situations. Seattle has the most clutch offense in recorded MLB history (WPA records only go back to 1974), which goes a long way toward explaining the team’s 33–18 record in one-run games this year.

Clutch hitting can take a team far, but it’s not something that can be counted on every night. Luckily, the core of the Mariners’ lineup started hitting extremely well during the final month:

After shuffling through a number of early-season contributors, the lineup stabilized after the All-Star break — something that coincided with Kelenic’s second call-up from Triple-A after his rough debut in May. The hits didn’t start falling immediately after his return to the majors; from July 16 through the end of August, he posted a .181/.263/.315 line (a 65 wRC+) with a 30.5% strikeout rate. But something clicked once the calendar turned over to September, with Kelenic hitting .242/.321/.537, good for a 135 wRC+. His strikeout rate dropped to 25.5%, he launched seven home runs, and more than half of his hits went for extra bases.

Read the rest of this entry »