The Rain Factor and the ALCS
The ALCS is supposed to kick off in Baltimore tonight, but there’s a slight problem; meteorologists in the area are calling for a 100% chance of rain this evening. From the Baltimore Sun’s story on the weather:
The 100 percent rain chance forecast “doesn’t mean it’ll be raining the entire time, but there will be showers in the area,” said Greg Schoor, another weather service meteorologist. Schoor said he expects light to moderate rain — “just enough to wet the ground kind of rain”, he said.
But there is also a chance bands of more moderate to heavy rain could pass through, he said. It’s impossible to predict where those might be.
Along with the rain, winds and air temperatures are forecast to be cold. Highs could just barely crack the 60-degree mark in the afternoon, with temperatures down in the 50s by game time and a cold northeast wind, Schoor said.
It seems to not even be a question of whether tonight’s game will be cold and wet; the question instead seems to be how cold, how wet, and how long will they be able to play. Game time is 8:00 pm eastern, with “steady rain” predicted from 10 pm to 2 am. Given the pace of MLB postseason games — the Orioles three division series games against Detroit each took almost exactly 3 hours and 42 minutes, while the Royals three games averaged 3 hours and 51 minutes — this game won’t end much before midnight, which means the last few hours could be either be played in a significant rain or might not be played at all.
So, this brings up a question for the managers: do you risk throwing your best starter in a game that seems likely to have some kind of delay? This is especially important to the Royals, who have a significant gap between their #1 starter and the rest of their rotation, and could be at a disadvantage if James Shields is forced out after just three or four innings tonight.
If ever there was a night to lead off with your relievers, and then go to your starter afterwards, this might be the night. It’s almost certainly too radical for Ned Yost to do, but if we think there’s a strong chance at a rain delay this evening, leading with Frasor-Finnegan-Herrera-Davis for the first few hours, then letting Shields go through his normal warm-up while the tarp is on the field, might be the best chance at getting 18 outs from him tonight.
Of course, meteorology isn’t an exact science either, and there might not end up being a delay at all. Best guess is both teams play it straight hope for the best, and if so, tonight’s game could really become a battle of the bullpens.
Dave is the Managing Editor of FanGraphs.
If the rain isn’t supposed to come until ~2 hours after first pitch, I’d risk the starter.
This is potentially another way to slow down the Royals running game. Are Cain, Dyson, Escobar and Gore mudders?
NEIGHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Factor for Royals: reduced speed on the bases
Factor for Orioles: reduced speed off the bat
I think the bad weather is worse for the Orioles than the Royals. Hard to hit homers in the rain. Any loss from a muddy infield on baserunning will be made up by baserunning advantages due to uncertainty in the field conditions.
The slides into the bases will be a lot of fun to watch.
Reading comments after the game is amusing.
Indeed! It’s almost like unpredictable reality inevitably demolishes speculation in unexpected ways! I’m just spitballing here, but that might be a great reason to actually watch the games!
Why bring a starter in later when it starts raining. If you are going with the bullpen, stay with the bullpen. If the rain doesn’t start until 2 hours into the game, go with Shields for the first 2 hours.
The one question more important than using your #1 starter is do I wear my lucky outfit?
The other weather-based factor is that if the game is postponed, games will be played on 5 straight days from Saturday to Wednesday, most likely necessitating that both teams use a 5th starter.
More worriesome (as a Royals fan) is that a five-day stretch means you might not have Herrera/Davis/Holland available during parts of the series.
If Duffy is the guy left out of the rotation, then the drop off is really not that far. Not sure about the O’s #5, so maybe this actually works in the Royals favor.
I think I read that if there is a rainout today, the teams could resubmit a roster tomorrow morning. This would allow them to add a bullpen arm at the expense of a bench player if necessary. I could be wrong about this.
Again, the Royals’ bullpen advantage is minimal, and the Orioles would be as handicapped by limiting the use of Miller, O’Day, and Britton.
The Orioles’ 5th starter would probably be Kevin Gausman, who is inconsistent but basically pretty good.
If the rain does cause a delay and knock out the starters, then we could see a good dose of Gausman and Duffy tonight.
That’s an interesting about the roster change. Thanks for sharing.
Royals should start Shields. If he only goes 2-3 innings, then you have Duffy in the bullpen and Shields would probably be available for game 3. Duffy is not much of a drop from Shields, you would handcuff Showalter by turning a RH starter into basically a LH starter, and Duffy’s proneness to home runs would be mitigated by the weather anyway.
I really don’t like the idea of starting the bullpen guys first because there is no guarantee that innings 3-9 are any more reliable than innings 1-6.
As Cal Ripken said in the commentary, it’s really the tenacity of the rain that makes it problematic. Thanks Cal, with your help I’m going to do effervescently on my SATs.
Now, is “Iron Man” one word or two?