The postseason game is changing around us. Starting pitchers are being asked to go harder for shorter periods of time, allowing teams to begin playing matchups with the bullpen as early as the third inning. And while strategically sound in most cases, this trend has emerged without a major change in how we think about rest and schedules in the postseason. As much as we might love the high-intensity matchups that “bullpenning” provides, is it possible that pitchers are having to endure greater stress than in the past?

Read the rest of this entry »

Technically, in Wednesday’s NL wild-card game, the lead never changed hands. The Diamondbacks went up 3-0 on Paul Goldschmidt‘s early homer, and they won by an identical margin. Yet it still felt like something of a roller coaster, because the Rockies refused to go away. A 6-0 game narrowed to 6-5. An 8-5 game narrowed to 8-7. Even Fernando Rodney’s ninth inning wasn’t clean, as the Rockies attempted to rally. The game, overall, delivered on its promise. We didn’t end up with a wild-card clunker.

It’s always fun to break these games down in retrospect. I like to take the win-expectancy angle. The game’s third-most important event was A.J. Pollock‘s triple in the bottom of the eighth. It moved the win expectancy by 11 percentage points. The game’s second-most important event was the first-inning Goldschmidt homer. It moved the win expectancy by 13 percentage points. And the game’s single most important event was Archie Bradley’s triple in the bottom of the seventh. It moved the win expectancy by 16 percentage points. Bradley is a pitcher. Bradley is a relief pitcher.

Read the rest of this entry »

Last night, the Rockies got let down by most of their pitching staff. Unlikely heroes Scott Oberg and Chris Rusin came in and shut the door, but the guys the Rockies were really counting on — particularly starter Jon Gray — just couldn’t keep the Diamondbacks from putting runs on the board.

Gray, coming off a pretty great season, gave up four runs while recording just four outs. And while Bud Black correctly noted that he just threw some pitches in some bad locations, I think it’s also fair to question some of the pitches themselves.

Read the rest of this entry »

The first of two Wild Card games is scheduled for tonight. In addition to must-win baseball, this time of year is also typically marked by the appearance of a Dave Cameron piece on the merits of “bullpen-ing” a game — that is, the practice of using nothing but relievers in a single contest, of attempting to exploit matchups in order to maximize the chances of winning.

While the logic of “bullpen-ing” is sound in theory, it also fails to account for the comfort of pitchers who’ve potentially become attached to their roles. To get a better idea of how they might adapt to such an approach and how it might be handled in practice, I asked some actual players about it. Turns out, there’s a particular type of reliever who’s best suited to take the ball in the first few innings of a win-or-go-home game. And a particular type of pitcher who should follow him.

The first thing revealed by my inquiries is that relievers love the idea. “I’m down for whatever,” said Giants reliever Hunter Strickland with a smile. Nationals closer Sean Doolittle just laughed for a while. “Would I get paid like a starting pitcher?” he finally asked after the laughter had subsided.

Relievers would be fine with it because they’re accustomed to answering the call whenever. “We’re used to throwing in whatever inning, [if] not usually the first,” said Strickland. Added Miami’s Brad Ziegler: “I don’t think it would be very different for me, as much as it would be for the starter coming into the game [in the later innings]. His whole routine would have to change.”

And a starter probably would have to throw a couple innings in such a game — in order to reach a full complement of nine and still leave some arms for extras, that is. So the question is probably which kind of starter would adapt effectively to an otherwise unusual arrangement.

The answer? Probably a young one. Older starters are more married to their routines. “It’s very hard for me personally,” said Brandon McCarthy regarding the idea of starting a game in any other inning but the first. “My routine as a starter is fixed to the minute and a lot of guys are like that. It’s certainly not something impossible to deal with but could make a team nervous.”

Read the rest of this entry »

Although it’s not yet completely certain, it looks like the Rockies are going to earn a trip to the playoffs. Should they get there, they’re going to need someone who looks like an ace. And, you know what, even if the Rockies somehow miss the playoffs, there’s still going to be more baseball, in 2018 and beyond. In those years, the Rockies are going to need someone who looks like an ace. Even in this era where starting pitchers have slightly diminished importance, there’s no substitute for a No. 1. Every team could use one; every team badly wants one.

The Rockies might thank their lucky stars for Jon Gray. Not that it’s all been luck, of course — the Rockies drafted Gray in the first round, and the Rockies developed him. But, with pitching prospects, anything can happen, for almost any reason. There would’ve been countless opportunities for Gray’s career to veer off the tracks. Still could, I suppose. Nothing’s for sure. But where Gray is, now, a few weeks shy of his 26th birthday — he seems to be becoming the best starting pitcher the Rockies have ever had.

Read the rest of this entry »

You have to look past the raw runs-allowed numbers. If you do, though, you’ll quickly realize that a large part of the Rockies’ success this year has been their bullpen. Second in the National League in Wins Above Replacement, second in the entire league in Win Probability Added, third in Shutdowns, third from the bottom in Meltdowns, and first overall in Clutch: this is a strong unit. Talk to a some of Colorado’s relievers about what they’ve discovered this year and a trend emerges. There’s a bit of a secret, maybe, to building a good bullpen when you’re up a mile high.

Read the rest of this entry »

The Rockies are struggling again. After winning eight of nine to re-solidify their lead in the race for the second Wild Card spot, they’ve now lost five of seven, including their last three in a row. Meanwhile, the surging Brewers have won nine of 12, closing Colorado’s lead to just a single game. Yesterday, they got shut out by Matt Moore, who has been one of the worst pitchers in baseball this year. The team’s inconsistent offense broke up for 16 runs last Saturday, but scored a grand total of 12 runs in the other five games they’ve played in the last week, and now the Brewers are nipping at their heels.

But if you look at our Playoff Odds, our algorithm still thinks the Rockies are in a pretty good spot, with a 68% chance of capturing the second Wild Card spot, versus just 16% for the Brewers. With just a one game lead, this is a pretty big discrepancy, and might seem like our projections are just wildly overrating the difference between the two teams. However, those calculations aren’t just accounting for the projected performance of the Brewers and Rockies over the next week and a half, but also taking both teams’ schedules into account. And the schedules for the two teams couldn’t be more different.

Read the rest of this entry »

The baseball season is currently about seven-eighths complete. Typically, around this time, the MVP races in both leagues start to become somewhat clear, with two or three players distinguishing themselves from the crowd. In the American League, that’s more or less the case. Jose Altuve, Aaron Judge, and Mike Trout possess the highest WAR marks among batters by some distance. Boston’s Chris Sale, meanwhile, will almost certainly provoke philosophical debates about a pitcher’s worthiness for the distinction of MVP.

In the National League, however, the picture is much less clear. One could make a convincing argument for Paul Goldschmidt. On the other hand, Giancarlo Stanton might hit over 60 home runs. Anthony Rendon is the current NL WAR leader. Corey Seager is the best position player on the team with the best record. Joey Votto is having a great season even for Joey Votto (and even for a last-place team). Kris Bryant has approximated the offensive numbers from his MVP-winning season last year. And, finally, Nolan Arenado is generally regarded as the best player on a Rockies club that’s likely bound for a play-in game.

This post actually does concern a member of the Rockies. It isn’t Arenado, though. While Arenado is probably the club’s best player, that’s not necessarily the same thing as having authored the club’s best season. Charlie Blackmon earns that distinction, and he’s a deserving MVP candidate.

A brief examination of Blackmon’s stat line reveals some gaudy numbers. He’s got 34 homers, the third-highest total in the NL. His .338 batting average leads the league, as does his total of 128 runs scored. His .404 on-base percentage ranks seventh in the NL; his .617 slugging percentage trails only Stanton’s .644 mark.

Of course, those numbers are all a product of Coors Field to some degree. As a member of the Rockies, Blackmon plays half his games in a ballpark that inflates offensive lines, which naturally invites suspicion regarding the legitimacy of Blackmon’s hitting exploits.

Fortunately, we can account for that. His 147 wRC+ — a mark that adjusts both for league and park — ranks sixth in the NL and indicates that Blackmon has been one of the National League’s best hitters even after acknowledging the influence of Coors.

Read the rest of this entry »

When the Rockies set out on their road trip Thursday, the conventional wisdom was that the team needed to pick up at least three wins during their time away from home. Expectations are usually modest for Rockies road trips, but particularly when they’re travelling to Los Angeles, Phoenix, or San Francisco. Historically, the Rockies have fared very, very poorly in those cities. And yet, the Rockies skipped LA on Sunday night with a four-game sweep of the Dodgers in their back pocket. What? To say this was unexpected would be a severe understatement. Yes, the Dodgers haven’t looked right lately, but most honest Rockies fans would tell you that they expected LA to get right against Colorado in this series. Such a belief would be well founded.

The Rockies, simply put, haven’t ever played well against the Dodgers. Entering the series, Colorado had a .366 winning percentage in LA, one of their lowest against any competitor. But it’s even worse than that. During the team’s first seven seasons, they went 22-19 in Los Angeles, a respectable showing to be sure. In those seven years, they swept the Dodgers in LA three times, and weren’t swept once. Since 2000, it’s been quite a different story. In the 18 seasons since, up to the start of this series, Colorado had a 52-109 record in LA, good for a .323 winning percentage. Since 2000, LA has swept the Rockies 16 times in LA (including in 2017, the last time Colorado had been in town from June 23-25) and the Rockies had only swept them once. That one time was in 2007, during the magical Rocktober run.

Historical records from over a decade ago obviously don’t possess much (or even any) predictive value for the present. It’s the identities of the players on each roster — not their uniforms — which ultimately dictate the course of play. It makes the recent result no less surprising or rare, however.

Read the rest of this entry »

In the age of the shift, it takes a lot for a particular defensive alignment to merit real attention.

But over the weekend, the Diamondbacks managed to do just that, utilizing what appears to be the most dramatic shift in recent history — notable even more so because the park at which they did it, Coors Field, features one of the game’s largest outfields.

We’ve seen about every variety of infield shift over the last four years, but we’ve never witnessed anything quite like what the Diamondbacks employed against DJ LeMahieu.

That gets your attention. That is bold.

Read the rest of this entry »