Of the four teams that made it into the American League Division Series round, two were lovable underdogs, teams no one expected to get anywhere close to that far. Around spring training, the Orioles were projected to finish last in the AL East, as they are just about every year. The Athletics were projected to finish last or close to last in the AL West, well behind the elite-level Rangers and Angels. No one expected the Orioles or A’s to make any noise, so when they did, people got swept up, and they were two incredibly easy teams to root for in the first series round of the playoffs.

And both of them got eliminated, leaving us with the Yankees and the Tigers to fight over the AL pennant. The Tigers played in the ALCS as recently as 2011, and the Yankees played in the ALCS as recently as 2010, so something about this matchup doesn’t quite feel so fresh. Granted, the Tigers and the Yankees have faced their adversity, too. The Tigers were multiple games out of a playoff spot in the middle of September. The Yankees not only had to fight off the Orioles, but they also had to deal with major injuries to Mariano Rivera, Michael Pineda, and Andy Pettitte. It’s been an easy road for neither team, but because people long expected both the Yankees and the Tigers to make the playoffs, this matchup doesn’t feel as appealing as it could’ve been.

Read the rest of this entry »

Justin Verlander was pretty amazing Thursday night in his complete game shutout victory over the Athletics in game five. If you boil it down far enough, that start was the best postseason start ever. Boil it down, as in: he collected eleven strikeouts against five baserunners with no runs in a complete-game deciding win in American League playoff game. He was the first person to hit all of those benchmarks at the same time. He set the strikeout record for complete-game-shut-out winner-take-all-wins.

The crazy thing, though, is how well his game five performance stacks up even if you relax each of those determining factors.

Read the rest of this entry »

If just for the sake of my writing, I set up a narrative for this series. The Tigers’ star power against the Athletics’ depth, speed, defense and bullpen. There have been a few asterisks so far, but surprisingly, the narrative has held. On Thursday, that narrative will meet Justin Verlander.

Read the rest of this entry »

On September 18th, Max Scherzer was removed from his start after two innings because of shoulder woes. There might not be a more troubling word in the world of pitching than ‘shoulder.’ Once it goes, with it goes your velocity, which is much worse than the risk of temporary loss of playing time and control that the elbow offers. We had so much success predicting a low-scoring game for Anibal Sanchez yesterday, let’s wash off the template and start again. Did something happen in mid-September that fundamentally changed Scherzer’s game?

Read the rest of this entry »

Tonight’s game three between the Tigers and Athletics features two starters that weren’t on their team’s active roster when the season began. But since Brett Anderson’s absence was due to injury, it was Anibal Sanchez that has given us a full season’s worth of stats to digest and so he’ll be the subject of our inquiry.

The fact that he’s given us stats all year isn’t to say Sanchez has been the same guy all year. If August Anibal shows up, the Athletics might be able to take advantage of their depth, defense and speed. If September’s version of the Tigers’ pitcher takes the mound, it will instead be the story of Detroit’s depth in the rotation that will end the series.

Read the rest of this entry »

Episode 257
First, imagine FanGraphs managing editor Dave Cameron. Next, imagine all baseball. Now, imagine Dave Cameron analyzing all baseball. That’s precisely what follows in this episode of FanGraphs Audio.

Don’t hesitate to direct pod-related correspondence to @cistulli on Twitter.

You can subscribe to the podcast via iTunes or other feeder things.

Audio after the jump. (Approximately 34 min. play time.)

Read the rest of this entry »

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

A series between two teams full of unique individuals doesn’t really fit into a nice plot with themes, characters and nemeses. But when in setting up this series, it still made sense to highlight the depth and undervalued skills on the Athletics and the top-heavy, star-driven status of the Tigers team. Two plate appearances from Sunday’s game two between these two teams seemed to encapsulate the overall matchup well, and highlight many of those same themes.

Read the rest of this entry »

If you hadn’t been paying close attention to the Athletics and the Tigers, you might have a couple preconceptions about the matchup. Maybe “old, slow sluggers” vs “speedy upstart youngsters.” Or maybe “tradition” vs “moneyball two.” Or maybe even “offense and an ace” vs “pitching and defense.” Delve further into the numbers, though, and this matchup between the elephants and the tigers isn’t so easily monikered.

Read the rest of this entry »

Let us acknowledge, with the 2012 regular season drawing to a close, that there’s been a fun debate surrounding the American League Most Valuable Player award. If not fun, then — at the very least — interesting. Let us acknowledge that there was a time at which it looked like voters would really, deeply, have to think. Let us now acknowledge that, with the Tigers probably going to the playoffs and the Angels probably not going to the playoffs, there’s probably going to be a little less thought, at least for some. It looked like we were going to have a rare contest between two guys not playing extra baseball, but now it’s looking like no such luck.

It’s all about Mike Trout and Miguel Cabrera, with Adrian Beltre being the subject of the occasional whisper. Pretty much everybody I’ve read has an opinion one way or the other; I suppose without an opinion, one probably wouldn’t be writing. Trout has many of the overall season numbers on his side, and the Cabrera argument wouldn’t have so much steam if it weren’t for his torrid offense down the stretch when the Tigers have needed it most. Cabrera, they say, has stepped up while Trout has stepped back, and these have been the most meaningful games. And that’s why Cabrera is deserving of consideration, at the very least.

Read the rest of this entry »

As it happens, we were at Doug Fister’s major-league debut. By “we” I mean myself, Dave Cameron, and some hundreds of USS Mariner and Lookout Landing readers. We weren’t there specifically for Fister; we were there for a blog event and a game, and Fister just happened to pitch in it. He pitched after Sean White, who pitched after Garrett Olson, who pitched after Chris Jakubauskas, who pitched after Ian Snell. The Mariners did not win that game.

Fister’s debut drew a modest response, because it’s always cool to see a guy play for the first time, and because the Safeco PA system uttered the name “Doug Fister” for the first time. But nobody had attended in the hopes of seeing Doug Fister pitch, because Fister was generally considered a no-stuff non-prospect. He could conceivably fill out the back of a bullpen or serve as rotation depth, sure, maybe, but he wasn’t thought of as someone to get excited over. Fister debuted in August 2009. All these sentences bring us to this:

It’s been a weird ride.

Read the rest of this entry »