The playoffs were absolutely wild this weekend. Out of the six games played Saturday and Sunday, two were all-time classics. First, the Yankees and Royals traded blows before Alex Verdugo produced a game-winning single after a controversial stolen base call. Then the Phillies and Mets traded home runs and blown leads right up until the last play of the game, Nick Castellanos’s walk-off hit.
If you wanted to, you could read our gamestories for these games, or any number of other finepiecesabout them across the internet. You could watch highlights or condensed recaps. But this is FanGraphs, so I thought I’d cover another angle: where these games fit in the history of wild playoff games.
We have win probability charts going back to 2002, which means we have data on total win probability changes going back to that year as well. If you take the absolute value of these and sum them up, you can see exactly how much each team’s fortunes changed throughout the contest. The more total win probability changes, the wilder things are. For example, the least exciting game by this measure occurred on October 9, 2019. The Cardinals beat the Braves 13-1 in the NLDS, and they opened things up by scoring 10 in the first inning. No drama, and thus very few changes in win probability. A 2023 contest between the Diamondbacks and Dodgers (11-2 Arizona, 9-0 after two innings) is the runner up. Read the rest of this entry »
“They just said there was nothing clear and convincing to overturn it,” Royals manager Matt Quatraro said Sunday morning, after he asked MLB why the call on the field was not reversed. “If he had been called out, that call would have stood too.” Read the rest of this entry »
NEW YORK — Alex Verdugo spent the last five months of the 2024 season dragging down the Yankees’ offense, so much so that in the season’s closing weeks, the team gave an abbreviated look to 21-year-old top prospect Jasson Domínguez. Not until late Friday night did word leak that manager Aaron Boone would stick with Verdugo to start the Division Series opener against the Royals, but the 28-year-old left fielder made the decision look brilliant. In a seesaw battle that included runs in every inning from the second through the seventh — creating five lead changes, a postseason first — Verdugo sparked a pair of two-run rallies with a third-inning single and sixth-inning walk, made a sparkling defensive play with a sliding catch to end the fourth, and drove in the decisive run in the seventh in the Yankees’ 6-5 win.
“He didn’t have his best season this year, but he’s gonna show you guys that this is his time,” said Jazz Chisholm Jr. “This is what he’s made for.”
During the regular season, Verdugo hit just .233/.291/.356 for an 83 wRC+, the ninth-lowest mark of any qualifier, and from May 1 on, he hit an even more dismal .225/.275/.336 for a 72 wRC+, the fourth-lowest of any qualifier. Nonetheless, Boone stuck with him through thick and thin, and the Yankees initially bypassed an opportunity to recall Domínguez — whose season included rehabbing from Tommy John surgery and then an oblique strain — when rosters expanded on September 1. They eventually called up Domínguez on September 9, and he started 15 of the team’s final 19 games, including eight out of the last 10 in left field while Verdugo sat.
But unlike last year, when he homered four times in eight games before tearing his right UCL, Domínguez scuffled at the plate (.179/.313/.304, 84 wRC+), leaving the door open for Verdugo. He was ready when Boone called his number, a decision that owed plenty to his familiarity with Yankee Stadium’s spacious left field and the way Domínguez, regularly a center fielder, struggled when shifted over to the less familiar position. “Obviously Alex has been tremendous for us out there defensively, and even though it’s been up and down for him in the second half, especially offensively, I still feel like there’s a really good hitter in there that can provide something for us at the bottom,” said Boone before Game 1. Read the rest of this entry »
It would be easy to look at what happened across the two American League Wild Card Series as the best possible outcome for the Yankees. The Astros, the team that had made it to the ALCS in each of the last seven seasons and eliminated New York three times to advance to the World Series in that span, saw their season end after losing to the Tigers; meanwhile, the Orioles, the Yankees’ up-and-coming division rivals who gave them fits all season, were bounced in Baltimore by the Royals.
That’s right, the two biggest AL threats to the Yankees this postseason were knocked out in the first round. To paraphrase manager Aaron Boone, it’s all right there in front of them. Indeed, their path to their first World Series appearance in 15 years is a bit clearer, in the sense that neither their past nemesis nor their latest challenger is standing in their way.
But let’s not get ahead of ourselves here. The Astros look more like the decaying New Rome of Megalopolis than the burgeoning empire that ransacked the AL for the better part of a decade, and Baltimore’s nearly completed rebuild still hasn’t gotten off the ground in October. Besides, the Royals are pretty good in their own right. They have a trio of excellent starting pitchers atop their rotation and a strong group of high-leverage relievers. They run the bases well and are either the best or one of the best defensive teams in the majors. And then there’s shortstop Bobby Witt Jr., a true five-tool player who posted 10.4 WAR this year and has carried Kansas City further than almost anyone could’ve expected when the season began.
To keep going, they will have to overcome the Yankees, who had the best record in the AL and won five of their seven games against the Royals this season. Kansas City’s first chance to do so comes Saturday night, when veteran right-hander Michael Wacha takes on reigning Cy Young winner Gerrit Cole in Game 1 of the ALDS at Yankee Stadium.
It certainly won’t be easy. The Yankees enter this weekend with the best odds of any AL team to win the World Series. Perhaps that makes sense, considering New York won’t have to go through Houston this time, but there’s a more specific explanation for why the Yankees are the team to beat this postseason: This is the best team they’ve had in years.
Wait, these Yankees, who won 94 games and were the second-worst team in baseball for six weeks, are better than the 100-win teams of 2018 and ’19? And the 2022 club that won 99 games? Even the upstart Baby Bombers squad in 2017, the one that many fans still claim would’ve won it all if not for the Astros’ sign-stealing scheme? Really? Sure!
Why? The main and most obvious reason is that the Yankees are no longer just the Aaron Judge show. They have two MVP-caliber talents batting back-to-back in their lineup, and somehow, describing Judge and Juan Soto as “MVP-caliber talents” doesn’t quite encapsulate their excellence or their importance to the Yankees. Think of it this way: The Yankees have both the best hitter in baseball since Barry Bonds and the second coming of Ted Williams. Or put another way, Judge and Soto are the second pair of teammates ever to finish with at least 8 WAR and a 175 or better wRC+. The first pair? Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig, who did it a ridiculous four times (1927-28, 1930-31).
The rest of New York’s lineup is, at best, inconsistent, but that was the case in prior seasons, too, when Judge was the only player around. In 2022, for example, excluding Judge, the Yankees were roughly league average at the plate (102 wRC+); this season, the Yankees have a 104 wRC+ without Judge. That isn’t much better, but consider where they would be without both Judge and Soto; excluding them, New York hitters have combined for a 92 wRC+. The point here is that the Yankees now have two elite players to lean on instead of just one, and if either Judge or Soto goes cold, the team still has one of the top three hitters in baseball to pick up the slack.
Also, it’s worth noting that Boone acknowledged earlier this week that Judge was pretty banged up during the 2022 postseason, which probably contributed to his struggles (35 wRC+ in nine games); before that year, Judge had a 126 wRC+ across 160 postseason plate appearances. Boone also said both Judge and Soto enter this postseason about as healthy as any player can be after playing a six-month season.
Beyond Judge and Soto, the Yankees also have Giancarlo Stanton, who seemingly levels up when the calendar turns to October. Since joining the Yankees, Stanton is slashing .297/.373/.734 with nine home runs, a .443 wOBA, and a 186 wRC+ over his 75 postseason plate appearances. Additionally, there’s second baseman Gleyber Torres, who had a disappointing contract year this season; he finished with a .257/.330/.378 line, 15 home runs, a 104 wRC+, and 1.7 WAR — all down from his resurgent 2023 campaign. That said, those numbers are pretty remarkable considering how poorly Torres played over the first few months of the season. Entering the All-Star break, he had an 88 wRC+ and 0.3 WAR across 93 games and 380 plate appearances; over his 61 games (285 PA) since then, he has a 124 wRC+ and 1.4 WAR.
The arrival of Jazz Chisholm Jr., for whom the Yankees traded in late July, coincided with their turnaround after their six-week slide. Playing all but 14 of his innings with the Yankees at third base, a position he’d never played professionally before, Chisholm helped shake the team out of its midsummer snooze. With the Yankees, he batted .273/.325/.500 with 11 home runs, 18 steals, and a 132 wRC+ over 191 plate appearances. Thanks to that offense and stellar defense at the hot corner (6 OAA), Chisholm had 2.3 WAR during his 46 games with the Yankees.
This lineup still has plenty of questions, though. Rookie catcher and cleanup hitter Austin Wells had a dreadful September, when he hit for a 22 wRC+ across 83 plate appearances. That probably has something to do with fatigue; through the end of August, Wells slashed .259/.348/.447 with a 126 wRC+. He hasn’t played since the Yankees locked up the no. 1 seed last Saturday, so we’ll see if he rebounds following a week of rest.
The Yankees also have a significant hole in left field, where Alex Verdugo played most of the season and was one of the 10 worst hitters in the majors (83 wRC+). More recently, Jasson Domínguez has started in left, but he’s looked shaky in the field and hasn’t hit much either, though his 84 wRC+ has come in a much smaller sample. Boone has not yet committed to playing one over the other.
Despite the struggles of some players, the Yankees were one of the best hitting teams in baseball overall, ranking third in runs (815), second in wRC+ (117), and first in home runs (237). They’ll face a Royals pitching staff that was one of the best in the majors. Kansas City ranked seventh in ERA (3.76), fourth in FIP (3.76), and third in WAR (20.2). The Royals rotation was especially excellent this season, with a 3.55 ERA and 16.7 WAR, both of which ranked second among all big league rotations.
Their top three starters deserve much of the credit for their success. Cole Ragans, who threw six scoreless innings in Game 1 of the Wild Card round and would’ve kept going if he hadn’t started cramping, broke out this season with a 3.14 ERA, a 2.99 FIP, and 4.9 WAR over 186 1/3 innings — more than 50 innings above his previous career high at any professional level. That workload could become an issue, though. As Ben Clemens noted in his AL Wild Card Series preview, “He’s been walking more opponents and striking out fewer of them in August and September; only a mid-.200s BABIP has kept his ERA from reflecting it.” Ragans is slated to start Game 2 on Monday.
Seth Lugo wasn’t at his best against the Orioles on Tuesday even though he allowed just one run on five hits and struck out six. He labored most of the night and looked gassed when he was removed with one out in the fifth. At 34, Lugo just completed the best season of his career, one that should earn him a top-five finish in the Cy Young voting. He had a 3.00 ERA, a 3.25 FIP, and 4.7 WAR across 33 starts and a whopping 206 2/3 innings, the second most in the majors. One of those starts came last month in the Bronx, when Lugo silenced the Yankees across seven scoreless innings; he struck out 10, walked none, and gave up just three hits. After that start, Jay Jaffe went into depth on Lugo, and I’d encourage you to check out that piece if you haven’t already. Lugo will start Game 3 on Wednesday in Kansas City.
That leaves Wacha, KC’s Game 1 starter, who is having his best season (3.35 ERA, 3.65 FIP, 3.3 WAR, 166 2/3 IP) since at least 2017. Like Lugo, Wacha revived his career last year in the Padres’ rotation and turned that into a multi-year deal with the Royals. In his Wild Card preview, Ben also compared the two Royals veterans to describe Wacha, whom he said “is like Lugo with the volume turned down 5%. He throws a ton of pitches, but his only plus offering is the changeup that made him famous back in his St. Louis days.” Another thing about Wacha? He’s held Judge to just one single and three walks with 11 strikeouts in the 21 times he’s faced the Yankees slugger during his career, for whatever that small sample is worth.
Like the Royals, the Yankees have a deep rotation. Cole missed the team’s first 75 games with an elbow injury, and his first seven starts were the work of a rusty pitcher who might have returned to the mound too quickly. Since the beginning of August, though, Cole has a 2.25 ERA and a 2.62 FIP across 10 starts (60 innings), and for the most part, he’s been even better than those numbers suggest during that stretch. Seven of the 15 earned runs he’s allowed in that span came in his bizarre September 14 start against the Red Sox, when he intentionally walked Rafael Devers with the bases empty. What’s more, only two of the 11 home runs hit off him this year have come within the past two months (in fact, those two homers came in the same start, on August 27 against the Nationals).
Cole is set to start Game 1 on Saturday, followed by Carlos Rodón in Game 2 on Monday. Boone has not yet announced who will get the ball in Wednesday’s Game 3 in Kansas City, but it will most likely be either Clarke Schmidt or Luis Gil, with the other one, along with Marcus Stroman, relegated to the bullpen.
During the second half of the season, Rodón looked more like the pitcher the Yankees thought they were getting when they signed him to a six-year, $162 million deal before the 2023 season. Over his 12 starts since the All-Star break, he is 7-2 with a 2.91 ERA, 3.93 FIP, and 3.67 xFIP. Home runs were his biggest problem this season; his 1.59 HR/9 was the fourth-highest rate among major league starters.
For his part, Schmidt (2.85 ERA, 3.58 FIP, 85 1/3 IP) has been the best Yankees starter on a rate basis this season, but he missed more than three months with a lat strain and has not been as strong since returning from the injured list. After posting a 2.52 ERA and a 3.53 FIP during his first 11 starts (60 2/3 IP), he had a 3.65 ERA and a 3.69 FIP in 24 2/3 innings across his five September starts.
Gil, a Rookie of the Year candidate, dominated during his first 14 starts of the season (2.03 ERA, 3.06 FIP, 80 IP) and anchored the Yankees rotation while Cole was on the shelf. He then looked completely lost for three starts — allowing 16 runs in just 9 2/3 innings — before rounding into form again after making an adjustment to his pitch mix. Over the first half of the season, Gil was mainly a fastball/changeup guy who also had a slider; that worked for the most part. But in early July, after his third straight clunker, he started leaning on his slider more, with his changeup becoming his third pitch.
With the way the ALDS schedule works out — an off day Sunday and then travel days on Tuesday and, if necessary, Friday — both teams will need only three starters to get through the best-of-five series.
Witt is by far the most threatening hitter the Yankees’ staff will face in a lineup that is otherwise fairly light on impact batters. Salvador Perez, who is somehow only 34 years old, is coming off a solid season in which he hit 27 home runs and had a 115 wRC+ while splitting his time between catcher and first base. Expect him to be behind the plate for the entire ALDS as long as first baseman Vinnie Pasquantino remains healthy enough to be in the lineup. Pasquantino, who hit 19 homers and had a 108 wRC+ this season, recently returned from a broken right thumb.
The Yankees bullpen is their biggest question heading into this series. Luke Weaver made a point to say earlier this week that he does not consider himself to be the team’s closer, even though Boone has turned to him in save situations instead of Clay Holmes, who was displaced as the closer last month. No matter what you call Weaver’s role, there’s no denying that he’s been the most impactful Yankees reliever this year. Over 62 appearances spanning 84 innings, he has a 2.89 ERA, a 3.33 FIP, and 1.0 WAR.
Holmes has blown a league-high 13 saves this season, but overall, he’s been solid: 3.14 ERA, 3.02 FIP, 63 IP. Some of his woes can be attributed to bad luck. As David Laurila detailed today, Holmes is still a groundball pitcher, but far more of the fly balls he’s allowed this season have been hit for home runs (11.8%, up from last year’s 7.1%). Opponents also have a .322 BABIP against him; that’s the highest it’s been in a full season. The Yankees’ bullpen also includes righties Tommy Kahnle (2.11 ERA, 4.01 FIP) and Ian Hamilton (3.82 ERA, 3.03 FIP), and lefty Tim Hill, who has a 2.05 ERA and 3.62 FIP in 44 innings since coming over from the White Sox in June.
Closer Lucas Erceg has anchored the Kansas City bullpen since the Royals traded for him at the end of July, and he’s been better than they could’ve expected when they acquired him. Michael Rosen just wrote about what makes Erceg special, and I’ll refer you to his piece rather than going into depth here. Lefty Kris Bubic, their second-best reliever, is also excellent; he struck out 32.2% of the batters he faced this season while posting a 2.67 ERA and 1.95 FIP over 30 1/3 innings. The Royals also feature relievers John Schreiber, a righty, and lefty Angel Zerpa, who replaced Lugo on Wednesday with one out in the fifth to escape a bases-loaded jam. For the first out he recorded, Zerpa threw a sinker that was so nasty that Colton Cowser swung at it even though it hit him.
It’s going to be a fun series. The Yankees are the better team, but the Royals, to quote the face of their franchise, “didn’t come this far just to come this far.” He added, “We’re going to keep getting after it, keep trying to create our own legacy.” What exactly that legacy turns out to be remains to be seen.
How the New York Yankees choose to deploy Clay Holmes throughout what they hope will be a long postseason run is uncertain, and the same is true for how he’ll perform in whichever role he assumes. The 31-year-old right-hander had a career-best 30 saves this season, but he was also charged with an big league-worst 13 blown saves. Displaced as the team’s closer by Luke Weaver in September, Holmes logged just one save in the season’s final month, that in the club’s last game.
His overall numbers were solid. Over 67 appearances comprising 63 innings, the sinkerballer put up a 3.14 ERA, a 3.02 FIP, and a 25.1% strikeout rate. He also killed a lot of worms, as evidenced by a 65% groundball rate that ranked second-highest among hurlers to throw at least 50 innings, behind only Tim Hill’s 68.2%.
Inducing groundballs has been Holmes’ M.O. ever since he debuted with the Pirates in 2018. He has a career groundball rate of 66.3%, with a high-water mark of 75.8% in 2022, his first full season in pinstripes. (The veteran reliever was acquired by New York from Pittsburgh in July 2021 in exchange for Diego Castillo and Hoy Park.)
As for playoff experience, his résumé is promising. While past performance is by no means a future guarantee, Holmes has nonetheless allowed just three hits over eight innings in six postseason appearances. Given that — and his 74 saves over the past three regular seasons — the 6-foot-5 hurler is battle tested when it comes to late-inning opportunities.
Holmes talked about his signature pitch, and how his approach hasn’t changed much over the years, when the Yankees visited Fenway Park in mid-September.
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David Laurila: You spent 10 years in the Pirates system before coming to New York. In terms of pitching philosophy — including what was emphasized in the development process — how different was Pittsburgh compared to here?
Clay Holmes: “I think ‘different’ is the key word. The onset of technology has happened pretty fast. To compare what you consider’ best’ and ‘right’ today to ‘best’ and ‘right’ when I was first drafted, you’re talking about two completely different atmospheres and settings in terms of where the game is. Read the rest of this entry »
Having gone around the horn and then some to identify the strongest players at each position among the remaining contenders in the National and American Leagues, I’ve turned to the weakest ones, with the NL slate running yesterday. This is something of an offshoot of my annual Replacement Level Killers series, and in fact, even some confirmed October participants have spots that still fit the bill as true lineup sinkholes, only this time with no trade deadline to help fill them. For this, I’m considering full-season performance but with an eye to who’s best or worst now, with injuries and adjustments in mind. Unlike the Killers series, I’m also considering pitching, with the shortening of rotations and bullpens factoring into my deliberations.
Until now, the pool of teams I’ve considered has consisted of eight clubs in the American League and seven in the National League. On Thursday, we officially lost the Mariners, who were mathematically eliminated with wins by the Royals and Tigers. What’s more, the Twins stand on the brink of elimination — they own the head-to-head tiebreakers with both the Tigers and Royals, but are three games back with three to play — so I’ve opted to exclude them here.
For this installment, I’ll highlight the biggest trouble spots from among an AL field that still includes the Yankees (who clinched the AL East on Thursday), Guardians, Astros, Orioles, Royals, and Tigers. Read the rest of this entry »
With the playoff fields in both leagues nearly set, we here at FanGraphs are turning our focus to how teams set up for October. Jay Jaffe has covered the best playersat each position among the contenders, with a run down of the worst positions in each league still to come. Dan Szymborski looked into the particulars of playoff lineup construction. Inspired by Meg Rowley, I’m taking a different tack: I’m looking for the players, strategies, and matchups that could be the difference between success and failure for each team.
We already know who the best players in baseball are, and they will of course be hugely important in the postseason. But less heralded players frequently have a lot to say about who takes home the World Series trophy. Think Steve Pearce and David Freese lengthening their respective lineups to turn those offenses from good to great, or the Braves bullpen mowing down the opposition in 2021. (On the flip side, you don’t hear a lot about teams let down by their supporting casts, because they mostly lose early on.) The best players aren’t always the most pivotal. In that spirit, I went through each team and focused on one potential pivot point. I’m looking at the American League today, with the National League to follow tomorrow.
New York Yankees: Austin Wells, Jazz Chisholm Jr., and Giancarlo Stanton
It’s not hard to come up with a game plan against the Yankees offense. It involves putting giant red boxes around Aaron Judge and Juan Soto, who have been the two best hitters in baseball this year, and writing “don’t let these guys beat us” in bold lettering beneath those boxes. The Yankees have the best wRC+ in baseball, all while their non-Judge/non-Soto hitters have combined for a 93 wRC+, the rough equivalent of the Washington Nationals. Sure, every team would be worse without its two best hitters, but not this much worse. Every pitcher who faces New York will have spent the vast majority of their preparation time looking at Judge and Soto, and building everything around that.
The easiest way to overcome Soto and Judge is to avoid them. I don’t mean intentionally walking them every time, though I’m sure Judge will receive his fair share of free passes. But teams will try to get those two to chase and avoid giving in even when behind in the count against them, which will result in plenty of walks the natural way. There’s going to be a ton of traffic on the bases for the team’s number four hitter, either Austin Wells or Jazz Chisholm Jr./Giancarlo Stanton depending on the matchup.
Wells has hit a rookie wall in the last month, with an 18 wRC+ in the last 30 days. Righties have simplified their attack against him, hammering the zone with fastballs and then aiming sliders at his back foot. This feels like the kind of slump that’s part fatigue and part adjusting to the majors. Wells hasn’t been aggressive enough on early-count fastballs (his swing rate on in-zone fastballs in the first two pitches of an at-bat has fallen from 64% to 54%), and so pitchers are taking the invitation to get ahead. Given how many runners tend to be on base in front of him, that approach will probably continue. It’s up to him to make opposing pitchers reconsider.
Chisholm and Stanton have split reps as the Judge follower with a lefty on the mound, and I’m not sure who will end up with the job. Like Wells, Chisholm has been too passive on early-count fastballs in his protection role, and he’s getting some tough counts and chase pitches as a reward. Still, I’m more optimistic about his outlook than Wells’. Chisholm might be taking fewer swings at crushable pitches, but he’s laying off tough breaking balls too, so it feels like part of a coordinated approach designed to minimize bad swings, and I don’t see an obvious plan of attack here for opposing lefties.
Pitchers attack Stanton high in the zone, where he’s prone to swinging under well-located fastballs. It’s a carnival game, almost: hit the brass ring on the high inside corner, and you’ll win a strikeout. Miss low, and you might surrender a home run. I expect the Yankees to deploy Stanton against pitchers who are less comfortable up in the zone, while Chisholm gets the nod against four-seam specialists.
How these three are able to respond to opposing game plans will go a long way towards deciding the Yankees’ fate this October. It’s a self-reinforcing cycle, too; if these four-spot hitters struggle, teams will naturally become more and more cautious with Soto and Judge, giving more opportunities to the guys behind them. If the four-hole hitters start to click, avoiding the two in front of them becomes less palatable.
Cleveland Guardians: Joey Cantillo and Matthew Boyd
The Guardians have used a simple blueprint to storm to one of the best records in the AL: timely hitting, great defense, and a lockdown bullpen. That’s how you end up with 90-plus wins despite a bottom-five starting rotation, one that looked sketchy heading into the year and lost Shane Bieber almost immediately. Tanner Bibee has been great, and Alex Cobb has been effective when not injured, but the spots after that are up for grabs.
In the past month or so, Joey Cantillo and Matthew Boyd have been the best options. Cantillo, in particular, has shown huge swing-and-miss upside, and he’s done it by using his best pitch, a changeup, more than a third of the time. He still has a fastball-heavy approach, and that pitch is probably his worst, but I expect that to change somewhat in the playoffs. With more off days and more bullpen availability overall, I think the Guardians will ask Cantillo to focus on his changeup and curveball, cut down on fastballs, and pitch twice through the order at max effort. He’s been intermittently great at doing just that, and when he’s on, the Guardians might not need to score much to win.
Boyd joined the Guardians when they were desperate for innings, and he’s been a pleasant second-half surprise. Still, I’m a lot less convinced by his performance than Cantillo’s. Call it the “new is always better” effect, because I’ve seen plenty of Boyd starts over the years and feel like I know what I’m getting at this point. That said, if he can put up average results in a five-and-dive role, the Guardians’ outlook will improve greatly. Their biggest weakness is always going to be the rotation, but Boyd and Cantillo have been great of late, and the rotation has actually been in the top half of baseball in the last month. For one of the weakest offenses in the AL field, improved run prevention would be a huge boon.
Houston Astros: Framber Valdez
The Astros look like a mirror image of the Guardians in a lot of ways. Despite adding Josh Hader, their bullpen has been a weakness thanks to a combination of injuries and regression. The defense isn’t great. But between resurgent bats and a few great starters, they’re putting up early runs and giving their bullpen enough cushion to make things work. Their second-half surge has been keyed by starting pitching in general, and by Framber Valdez in particular.
Valdez had been quietly bad for about a year by the time this All-Star break rolled around. From July 15, 2023 through July 15, 2024, he compiled a 4.13 ERA and 4.01 FIP. He’s always relied on producing a huge number of grounders, but changes in his fastball shape eroded that edge last summer, and it took him quite a while to adjust his game accordingly. His solution has been simple: use his best pitch more frequently. Valdez’s curveball is one of the best in the game, and he’s leaning on it:
More curveballs, more whiffs, more strikeouts, plummeting ERA — he looks like a whole new Valdez. He’s even getting more grounders again, at least partially because hitters are forced to look for the curveball more often and take emergency swings against sinkers. He’s been one of the best starters in the game over the past few months. That’s mostly what people already thought of Valdez – the top starter on a top team – but for a minute there, it wasn’t quite true. Now he looks dominant again, and he’s pitching deep into games too; he’s pitched into the seventh inning in six of his last 10 starts. The Astros could use that combination of length and quality, because if they’re going deep into their bullpen, things could get ugly.
Baltimore Orioles: Jordan Westburg
These don’t all have to be complicated. When Jordan Westburg broke his hand on July 31, the Orioles were a game back of the best record in baseball. Since then, they’ve gone 22-26, and his replacements haven’t impressed. Jackson Holliday hasn’t exactly replicated his nightmare April call-up, but he has a 70 wRC+ since returning to the majors. Emmanuel Rivera has been hitting well, but he’s more of a utility infielder/platoon piece than an everyday starter. Westburg’s presence means that Baltimore’s lineup makes sense; it felt stretched when he was out.
Broken hands are notoriously difficult injuries to forecast. Sometimes recovery is swift and complete. Sometimes power is slow to come back even as everything else rebounds. There’s no strict timeline; we simply don’t know how he’ll look. There’s also the matter of rust. After a brief rehab stint, the O’s activated Westburg over the weekend, but that still means only having about a week to get back up to major league conditioning and form before the games start to count.
Plenty of Baltimore’s hitters have had power outages in the second half — it’s not like you can pin the team’s entire swoon on Westburg’s absence. Adley Rutschman, in particular, looks worn down to me, and Anthony Santander and Ryan O’Hearn have cooled off. But Westburg’s return is a huge potential boost. If he’s back to his former self, the lineup gets scary to navigate. If he’s still not 100%, the other options aren’t amazing. Keep your eyes out to see how he handles inside fastballs, often a tough pitch to deal with if your hand is still hurt.
Detroit Tigers: Performance Against Good Fastballs
The Tigers seem to have worked out a good plan on the pitching front: Let Tarik Skubal cook, and fill in everything else with bullpen innings. But that’s only half the equation. They need to score runs, too, and that’s been a challenge this year. They’ve scored the fewest runs of any potential playoff team, and it’s not fluky; they have the worst wRC+ of the bunch, and they’re in the middle of the pack when it comes to baserunning.
To make matters worse, the Tigers have been especially weak against good fastballs. Only five teams in baseball have done worse against fastballs 96 mph and above this year: the Rockies, White Sox, Blue Jays, Marlins, and Rays. (They’re also bad against fastballs 95 and above, to be clear – 96 just feels like the new definition of “hard fastball” as velo keeps creeping up.) That’s not good company to keep, and the playoffs are chock full of hard fastballs. In the 2023 regular season, 10.4% of all pitches were fastballs thrown 96 mph or harder. In the playoffs, that crept up to 15.5%. Teams with hard-throwing relievers make the playoffs more often, and they also use their best relievers more while asking their starters to throw harder in shorter bursts in October. If you’re weak against velocity, teams will come after you.
Spencer Torkelson has had well-publicized struggles against hard stuff. Matt Vierling, Jace Jung, and Trey Sweeney, all of whom will start plenty in the playoffs, have looked overmatched this year against very good heaters. Kerry Carpenter and Colt Keith are doing damage against them, so look for opponents to attack the lefty-heavy heart of the Detroit lineup (Carpenter, Keith, and Riley Greene) with secondary-heavy lefties and then bring the thunder against everyone else. The Tigers are going to see a lot of fast pitches in the strike zone. If they can’t handle them, it might make for a short October run. If they can, their offense will surprise to the upside.
Kansas City Royals: GB/FB Ratio Allowed
The Royals are one of the best defensive teams in baseball, and the eye test and defensive models agree. But while the Bobby Witt Jr.-led infield is outstanding, the outfield is more of a mixed bag. Center fielder Kyle Isbel has been great in 2024, but he’s not getting much help. Tommy Pham is a hair below average in right, hardly surprising given that he’s 36. MJ Melendez is one of the worst defensive outfielders in baseball. Isbel covers so much ground that he can make up for some shortcomings, but one man can only run so fast. Think of it this way: Per Statcast, Kansas City’s infield defense has been 31 outs above average. Their outfielders have been three outs above average, and that’s with Garrett Hampson putting in solid work in left when Melendez isn’t available. The Royals’ preferred lineup is light on outfield defense, in other words.
The Royals pitching staff isn’t particularly focused on grounders, though. They’re in the middle of the pack when it comes to GB/FB ratio, and Brady Singer is the only one of their playoff starters who effectively keeps the ball on the ground. Opposing teams will be looking to elevate against the Royals, keeping the ball away from Witt’s all-encompassing glove. That might go double in Kansas City, where Kauffman Stadium’s cavernous confines mean that balls in the gap can travel a long way. Isbel is so good that he can cover for some of the corner deficiencies, but if the Royals’ opponents can pepper the pull side in the air, Kansas City’s defensive excellence will be blunted.
Minnesota Twins: Bridge Relievers
Let’s throw in the Twins as a bonus, even though they’re out of playoff position at the moment. They’re two back in the loss column with four left to play, which doesn’t leave them much margin for error. On the bright side, though, they hold the tiebreaker over both the Royals and Tigers, which gives them an outside chance at sneaking into the field if either of their divisional rivals hits a banana peel in the last series of the year. We give them a 22.8% chance of making the playoffs, which feels like enough of a shot to include in this article.
The business end of the Minnesota bullpen is fearsome. Jhoan Duran isn’t having his best season, but he’s clearly one of the better closers in the game. Griffin Jax has been outstanding. He has five plus pitches and is commanding them well, absolutely overwhelming opponents in the process. He might end up as the most valuable reliever in baseball this year when you consider volume, leverage, and results.
Should the Twins make the postseason, Duran and Jax are going to be very busy. But they can’t pitch all of the relief innings, and the guys behind them are question marks. Louie Varland has a 5.79 FIP (don’t even ask about the ERA, it’s ugly) and is coming into bigger spots than any Minnesota reliever aside from the top duo. Cole Sands has had an up-and-down season, and we consider him their secondary setup man after Jax. Scott Blewett and Ronny Henriquez have seen their strikeout rates plummet to borderline unplayable levels. Caleb Thielbar is dancing on a knife’s edge between effectively wild and unable to find the zone.
To be clear, this isn’t a case of an unfixably bad unit. I think Thielbar is an impact lefty when he’s right. Varland has premium stuff. Henriquez’s changeup is a weapon. Starting with Duran and Jax is a huge tailwind. It isn’t hard to imagine a world where some of the bullpen options pop and the Twins suddenly have a dominant relief corps.
But that hasn’t happened this year. Minnesota’s bullpen is playing its worst baseball of the season over the past few weeks – they have a 4.80 ERA even with the two top options taken into account, and a 5.33 without them. The middle innings are feeling shakier than ever, and that’s particularly concerning given that the starting rotation has been covering fewer innings since Joe Ryan hit the IL. If this group rises to the occasion, the Twins will look like a completely different team than they have so far this September. But, uh, that’s kind of the problem: Right now they don’t look very good.
With just 10 days left to go in the regular season, four teams — the Brewers, Dodgers, Guardians, and Yankees — have clinched playoff berths, and while just one division race has been decided, only two others have even a faint pulse. There’s still plenty of drama to be had with regards to the Wild Card races, which essentially boil down to a pair of four-to-make-three scenarios; Seattle might have been a stronger fifth in the AL if certain Mariners who reached third base didn’t insist upon taking very strangewalkabouts. Beyond that, it’s also worth checking in on the jockeying for position to claim the first-round byes that go to the top two teams in each league.
Once upon a time, this space would be filled with my reintroducing readers to the concept of Team Entropy, but through the 2022 Collective Bargaining Agreement, Major League Baseball and the players’ union traded the potential excitement and scheduling mayhem created by on-field tiebreakers and sudden-death games in exchange for a larger inventory of playoff games. The 12-team, two-bye format was designed to reward the top two teams by allowing them to bypass the possibility of being eliminated in best-of-three series. So far, however, things haven’t worked out that way, because outcomes in a best-of-five series are only slightly more predictable than those of a best-of-three.
In fact, the National League teams who have received byes under the newish system have lost all four Division Series since, two apiece by the Dodgers and Braves. The 111-win Dodgers were ousted by an 89-win Padres team in 2022, and then last year’s 100-win team was knocked off by the 84-win Diamondbacks. In 2022, the 101-win Braves fell to an 87-win Phillies team, and last year, after winning 104 games in the regular season, Atlanta once again was eliminated by a Philadelphia club that had finished 14 games behind the Braves in the standings. American League bye teams have had more success, going 3-1, with last year’s 90-win Rangers beating the 101-win Orioles for the lone upset. The Astros have taken care of business in both years, with their 106-win club sweeping the 90-win Mariners in 2022 and their 90-win team beating the 87-win Twins last year. Read the rest of this entry »
Welcome back to Top of the Order, where every Tuesday and Friday I’ll be starting your baseball day with some news, notes, and thoughts about the game we love.
Tight playoff races, milestone and award chases, and looking ahead to the offseason — these are the things I love about September baseball. One of the first decisions to be made after the World Series is determining who will receive qualifying offers, which currently projects to be valued at $21.2 million.
As a quick reminder before we continue, the qualifying offer is set at a price of the mean average annual value of the 125 highest-AAV players in the league. Once it’s offered to a player, he has 10 days to decide whether to accept or decline the offer. If the player accepts, he’s locked into 2025 at that salary, though he can always negotiate a contract extension that may override the qualifying offer. If the player declines and signs with a new team, his new team will forfeit at least one 2025 draft pick, and his old team will receive exactly one ’25 draft pick.
With less than three weeks left in the regular season, let’s run through which pending free agents could be getting qualifying offers come November.
Paul Goldschmidt is a tough act to follow, but Christian Walker has done well since taking over for him after the Diamondbacks traded Goldschmidt to the Cardinals in December 2018. Walker has been especially great the last three years, with 10.9 WAR, a 122 wRC+, and excellent defense at first base. He’s not spectacular, but he’s very good, and if the Diamondbacks are fine with running a record payroll again, they’d be wise to keep him around.
Walker’s got one big drawback, though: his age. Next year will be his age-34 season, and while he’d certainly like to earn a multi-year deal in free agency, the qualifying offer might tamp down his market to the point that accepting it would net him more money in 2025. He also might not want to risk rejecting it, hanging out on the open market for months, and then having to sign a prove-it deal. He’s a core member of a team that went to the World Series last year, is almost certainly going to return to the playoffs again this season, and is built to contend next year, too. Additionally, he seems comfortable in the desert. For all of these reasons, he is probably the player most likely to return to his team on a qualifying offer.
Likely to Receive, Likely to Reject
Tyler O’Neill has popped 30 home runs in his best and healthiest season since 2021, with his wRC+ just one point away from tying that career year. On the surface, that makes him seem like a slam dunk to receive the qualifying offer, and a slam dunk to reject it. He’s entering his age-30 season, and coming off his strong performance this year, he could look to get a three- or four-year deal on the open market. The one thing that gives me pause, though, is O’Neill’s injury history and how that might influence teams’ willingness to offer him a multi-year deal worth an average annual value of roughly $20 million. Understanding this, if the Red Sox give O’Neill the qualifying offer, he could decide it’s in his best interest to accept it. Meanwhile, Boston might not want to pay him $22.1 million next year, instead opting to use that money to bolster other areas of its roster. I still think the Red Sox will extend him a qualifying offer, and that he will turn it down, but it’s not a sure thing.
There’s an argument to be made that Michael Wacha is having the best season of his career; it’s definitely his healthiest since 2017. Provided he avoids injury the rest of the way, he’ll eschew his $16 million player option in favor of hitting the open market once again, leaving the Royals with a tough decision. On the one hand, this version of Wacha is worth $22.1 million; on the other, the injury concerns don’t just go away just because he’s been mostly healthy this year. As unlikely as Wacha would be to accept, the Royals might also prefer to eliminate any chance that he’d do so and instead allocate that money to lengthen their lineup. Having a rotation anchored by Cole Ragans and Seth Lugo would make losing Wacha an easier pill to swallow.
Total Toss-Ups
If Ha-Seong Kim had reached free agency before this season instead of after it, he probably would have earned a deal of at least $100 million following his 4.3 WAR, 110 wRC+ campaign in 2023. But right shoulder inflammation could keep him on the sidelines for the rest of the season, and his run values as a hitter, fielder, and baserunner have all gone down considerably in 2024. That said, even in this down year, he’s put up 2.6 WAR and is still only 28; that is probably worth $22.1 million. However, considering the Padres have a glut of infielders already, they may not want to give Kim the option to accept a qualifying offer.
Luis Severino is having his healthiest season since 2018, when he put up 5.4 WAR across 191 1/3 innings, made the All-Star team, and received Cy Young votes as the ace of the Yankees. But he’s a completely different pitcher now than he was then. His velocity is still there, but he no longer has the swing-and-miss stuff to anchor a rotation. Even with the Mets expected to lose two other starters to free agency, I don’t think they’d want to pay him the salary of a no. 2 starter when, at this point, he profiles more like a no. 3 or 4.
There may be no starter in the league more enigmatic than Nick Pivetta. The stuff has always been great, but the command has been … less so. I’m of the opinion that he’d do surprisingly well on the open market, and in my head I’m comparing him to Yusei Kikuchi, who got three years and $36 million from the Blue Jays coming off a similarly uneven (and probably worse) few years. But the Red Sox already have Brayan Bello, Tanner Houck, Kutter Crawford, and Lucas Giolito (assuming he recovers well from internal brace surgery) locked into next year’s rotation, and they may invest the $22.1 million elsewhere.
Unlikely to Receive
For other teams, I’d say that it would be a no-brainer to extend Shane Bieber a qualifying offer, but $22.1 million is a lot of money for the Guardians. If Bieber were to accept it, he could represent 20% or more of their payroll for 2025, and he might not be available until the second half of the season anyway after undergoing Tommy John surgery in April. Considering his track record and how well he pitched in his first couple starts of the season, a multi-year deal at a lower average annual value — with the cash backloaded pretty heavily — should be easy for Bieber to secure.
There aren’t any pending free agent relievers with the pedigree of Josh Hader, who was an obvious qualifying offer recipient and rejector last offseason. Clay Holmes started his season pitching like he’d end up receiving one, but he’s lost his closer job and has probably worn out his welcome in New York, frankly. On the other side of the coin is Jeff Hoffman, who’s been nothing short of excellent for two seasons in Philadelphia. But he’s entering his age-32 season and doesn’t have nearly the track record of other relievers who have received qualifying offers in the past. I’d be shocked if he gets one.
Ineligible to Receive
As a reminder, players who’ve appeared for multiple teams in the same season are ineligible to be tendered a qualifying offer. That eliminates Kikuchi and Jack Flaherty. Also ineligible are players who’ve received one in the past, so that rules out Joc Pederson, Max Scherzer, Nathan Eovaldi (assuming he declines his player option), Cody Bellinger (ditto), and, should he opt out, Gerrit Cole.
On Tuesday night, while much of the country tuned in to see Kamala Harris debate Donald Trump, I watched an even more lopsided performance from the upper deck at Yankee Stadium, where the Royals’ Seth Lugo utterly dominated the Yankees, holding them to just three hits, walking none and striking out 10 over seven innings in a 5-0 Kansas City win. Through six innings, the only Yankee to reach base was Gleyber Torres, who blooped soft singles into center field on Lugo’s fifth pitch of the game and then, roughly an hour and 20 minutes later, on his 86th pitch; in between, Lugo retired 17 straight hitters. It was the latest in a season full of great outings from the righty, who at 34 years old is having a career year while pushing the Royals toward their first postseason berth since 2015.
Lugo’s seven scoreless frames ran his total to a major league-leading 193 innings while lowering his ERA to 2.94, second in the AL behind only Tarik Skubal. Meanwhile, he’s third in WAR with 4.4, 0.2 behind teammate Cole Ragans, fifth in FIP (3.27), seventh in walk rate (5.8%), and eighth in strikeouts (169) despite punching out hitters at a modest 21.7% rate. He’s also tied with Skubal for the league lead in wins (16), and so by our Cy Young Projection model and its multiple variants, his suite of stats puts him second in the AL to Skubal and a comfortable margin ahead of Ragans, Logan Gilbert, and Framber Valdez. All of this is happening in the first year of a three-year, $45 million contract he signed with the Royals last December, and in just his third season as a starter after largely being typecast as a workhorse reliever during his seven seasons with the Mets (2016–22).
Knocking back a couple of beers from my partial season ticket group’s usual perch in Section 422 affords a different perspective than in the press box or at home. So when Sports Reference’s Katie Sharp noted that the game was the first time the Yankees had ever been held to zero walks and zero extra-base hits while striking out at least 14 times, I decided to take a closer look at Lugo’s night to gain a fuller appreciation of what’s made him so successful lately. Read the rest of this entry »
