The Houston Astros evened up the World Series in convincing fashion Saturday night, defeating the Washington Nationals 8-1 in a game that was only in doubt for a few, relatively brief moments. With this win, the Astros reset the World Series into a best-of-three in which they have home-field advantage. By forcing a Game 6, regardless of the outcome of tonight’s Game 5, Houston guarantees that their last game of the year will be in front of their fans.

If there’s one thing that no one should be surprised about, it’s baseball’s ability to surprise. If you were talking to a friend who hasn’t been following the World Series, and told them a tale of a clutch Astros starter throwing five shutout innings on the sport’s biggest stage, they might think you were referring to the team’s 225-win, future Hall of Famer. Or maybe the Cy Young favorite who went undefeated for most of the season, or at least the ace pitcher picked up from the Diamondbacks in a blockbuster July trade.

Your friend in this theoretical may be extraordinarily well-informed and name Jose Urquidy, but three months ago, few would have expected Urquidy to be Houston’s firewall to prevent the team from falling to a 3-1 World Series deficit. The 24-year-old rookie not only isn’t an established veteran; he can’t even claim to be a phenom prospect making good on unlimited potential. Urquidy was barely on the prospect radar (he is currently 19th in the org on THE BOARD), a pitcher with a decent fastball and changeup, and good command, but little dazzle and an injury-shortened minor league career.

With their rotation ranking fourth in baseball in WAR, the Astros didn’t envision having fourth-starter questions in the playoffs. The acquisition of Zack Greinke appeared to make Wade Miley one of the game’s best fourth starters, completing the team’s playoff rotation. But Houston also didn’t envision that Miley, who sported an ERA under three as late as August, struggling immensely down the stretch. Miley pitched himself out of the rotation and then the playoffs entirely, leaving the Astros with something of a situation. A fourth starter wasn’t needed in the ALDS with its ample off-days, and any awkwardness in the ALCS was compensated for by the fact that the Yankees had the same worry. Read the rest of this entry »

Thad Ward didn’t make our Red Sox Top Prospect List prior to this season. Baseball America wasn’t bullish on the 22-year-old right-hander, either. Their rankings went 30-deep, and Ward didn’t make the cut.

Next year will be a different story. Ward was a revelation in his first full professional season, fanning 157 batters, and allowing just 89 hits, in 126-and-a-third innings. Those numbers came between low-A Greenville and high-A Salem, where his cumulative ERA was a sparkling 2.14.

His slider is his best pitch.

“It’s a Chris Sale slider,” is how Red Sox pitching guru Brian Bannister described it to me in late September. “It’s a sweeping slider, with a similar shape to Jhoulys Chacin’s or Corey Kluber’s. It has that extra horizontal component to it.”

That’s long been the case, although Ward’s understanding of the how-and-why is recent. When he reported to spring training this year, the 2018 fifth-round pick out of the University of Central Florida got a crash course in Pitching Analytics 101. Read the rest of this entry »

8:07	Eric A Longenhagen:

Read the rest of this entry »

In a technical sense, Game 3 wasn’t a must-win for the Astros. In a practical sense, the odds of Houston winning four straight games against the Nationals are under 10%. The Astros needed the win, and they got it with a 4-1 victory. For those purists of the game who enjoy pitchers batting, Game 3 of the World Series highlighted one of the big differences in strategy between the American and National Leagues: pitchers as hitters.

Greinke’s Bunt

The first potentially important pitcher plate appearance occurred in the top of the second inning. Zack Greinke came to bat with one out and runners on first and third. Greinke’s season wRC+ of 123 doesn’t really represent his true hitting talent, but his career 60 wRC+ also understates his value in this situation. Greinke got down a successful bunt and advanced the runner to second, but the Astros’ win expectancy went down about five percentage points. If Greinke had done nothing, it would have only gone down a single percentage point more. While a double play would have dropped the win expectancy by about 10 percentage points, a sac fly would have moved the Astros up four percentage points, while a single would have moved them up six.

Greinke’s career wRC+ indicates he isn’t a particularly good hitter, but it’s mostly due to his inability to walk or hit for power. With a .225 lifetime average, he hits a decent number of singles, which is what the Astros needed in this situation. With a runner already on third, moving a single runner to second doesn’t help much when there are two outs. The expected situation is a Greinke out, which drops win expectancy by six. The bunt is only one percentage point so we’re really dealing with the chances of a double play versus the chances of a single. Given the large bump from a single compared to the expected out, versus the small drop from the bunt to a double play, the double play would have to have been much more likely than the single to make bunting the right choice. That isn’t in the case here, particularly with Aníbal Sánchez giving up a bunch of loud contact in the first few innings. George Springer followed the bunt with a groundball out to keep the game at a one-run deficit for the Nationals. Read the rest of this entry »

8:01	Dan Szymborski: Welcome to the Game 3 chat!

8:01	Dan Szymborski: This could be the penultimate chat of the 2019 season or possibly only the preantepenultimate chat!

8:04	Dan Szymborski: not let’s go Nats?

8:04	Dan Szymborski: Are you suggesting that you and the Nats should go somewhere? THERE’S AN IMPORTANT GAME STARTING

Read the rest of this entry »

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley discuss the latest on the Astros and the benefits and limitations of front-office diversity, Rob Manfred’s new comments about the baseball, Kris Bryant’s grievance against the Cubs, umpire Rob Drake’s apology for a bad tweet, and Yu Darvish’s good tweets, then answer listener emails about Juan Soto’s age and clubhouse drinking, the Nationals’ clubhouse chemistry, whether teams should stagger their starters to avoid opponents’ aces, whether stealing third is easier than stealing second, whether baseball should have a playoff losers bracket, and whether pitchers can use the variation between baseballs to their advantage.

Audio intro: Thrush Hermit, "This Week"
Audio outro: Modern Baseball, "Play Ball!"

Link to Manfred’s comments about the ball
Link to article about Bryant’s grievance
Link to article about Rob Drake’s tweets
Link to Rob Drake’s apology
Link to Boswell article about the Nats’ chemistry
Link to Svrluga article about the Nats’ chemistry
Link to article about the Astros’ chemistry
Link to Ben on forecasting chemistry
Link to Emma on MLB’s issues
Link to video of Soto’s sparkling grape juice
Link to story on Harper’s apple cider
Link to Rob’s new research about the ball
Link to story on Darvish/Verlander tweets
Link to Ben Clemens on staggering starters
Link to Dan Lependorf on staggering starters
Link to Dan Meyer on staggering starters
Link to Roger Cheng on staggering starters
Link to order The MVP Machine

 iTunes Feed (Please rate and review us!)
 Sponsor Us on Patreon
 Facebook Group
 Effectively Wild Wiki
 Twitter Account
 Get Our Merch!
 Email Us: podcast@fangraphs.com

Podcast (effectively-wild): Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

The great starting pitching of these two teams was the headlining feature heading into this edition of the World Series. The matchup of two historically good rotations promised a fiercely competitive series with runs at an even higher premium than they already are in the postseason. We are two games in and the Astros’ two best starters have allowed a combined nine runs while the bullpen has allowed an additional eight. It’s been an ugly start for the Houston pitching staff.

The Astros will hand the ball to Zack Greinke in Game 3 while the Nationals counter with Aníbal Sánchez. ZiPS gives the Astros an overwhelming 58.3% chance to claw their way back into the series in Game 3. After his relief appearance in Game 1, Patrick Corbin draws the start on Saturday in Game 4. While Sánchez doesn’t approach the level of the Nats’ top three starters, his presence on the roster gives them the flexibility to rest their best pitchers should the series stretch longer than five games. And to Sánchez’s credit, he held the Cardinals scoreless and nearly hitless in his Game 1 start in the NLCS.

After Greinke, the Astros’ plan is a little less clear. When Houston needed to call on a fourth starter in the ALCS, they instead leaned on their bullpen, using seven different pitchers in the deciding Game 6. At that point in the series, they held a 3-2 advantage over the Yankees and were coming off an off day in the schedule. If they had lost Game 6, they had a rested Justin Verlander and Gerrit Cole available for Game 7. They don’t have that luxury in the World Series. Read the rest of this entry »

Free agency begins five days after the end of the World Series. As in other recent offseasons, FanGraphs is once again facilitating a contract-crowdsourcing project this offseason, the idea being to harness the wisdom of the crowds to the end of better understanding the 2019-20 free-agent market.

Below are ballots for six of this year’s free agents — in this case, a group of potential-but-not-yet-for-sure free agents, some of whom will be among the best at their position should they hit the market. Stephen Strasburg, Aroldis Chapman, and J.D. Martinez have the ability to opt out of their existing contracts. Yasmani Grandal and Mike Moustakas are bound to their current teams by an option that must be mutually exercised. Edwin Encarnación is subject to a team option. Numbers are prorated to full season where noted. Projected WAR figures from final the update of the 2019 Steamer forecast.

Free agency begins five days after the end of the World Series. As in other recent offseasons, FanGraphs is once again facilitating a contract-crowdsourcing project this offseason, the idea being to harness the wisdom of the crowds to the end of better understanding the 2019-20 free-agent market.

Below are ballots for six of this year’s free agents — in this case, a group of starting pitchers. Numbers are prorated to full season where noted. Projected WAR figures from final the update of the 2019 Steamer forecast.