Chris Sale, one of just two legitimate candidates for the American League’s Cy Young Award, will start for the Red Sox this afternoon against the Astros in Houston. Sale has produced a season nearly unprecedented in certain important ways. The Astros’ offense has produced a season nearly unprecedented in certain important ways. The former isn’t an unstoppable force, nor the latter an immovable object, mostly because humans are irretrievably fallible. Relative to other mortals, however, both parties acquit themselves very well.

Unsurprisingly, Houston manager A.J. Hinch has deployed a righty-heavy lineup against Sale. Only Brian McCann and Josh Reddick will lack the platoon advantage against Boston’s starter. Over the course of his career, Sale has conceded a wOBA nearly 50 points greater to right-handed batters than left-handed ones. But that’s mostly because he’s rendered left-handers existentially moot. Righties have still hit poorly against him, producing a collective batting line roughly equivalent to Yolmer Sanchez’s own career mark.

So it’s clear that Sale has had success against right-handers. How, though? What specifically does he throw? The answer is likely relevant to his start against the Astros.

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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.

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Back in mid-August, I attended a Midwest League game featuring a team with a notably young staff. The manager and pitching coach were both just 27 years old; the hitting coach was only three years their senior. A few weeks earlier, meanwhile, I’d spoken to a short-season coach who’s been tutoring pitchers longer than any of those three has been alive. He’s old enough to draw Social Security and still on the job.

That got me thinking about the age dynamic. How are players at the lower levels of the minors impacted by managers and coaches from different age groups? Do 18- to 22-year-old athletes respond better to, and learn more from, instructors who are old enough to be their fathers or grandfathers? Or from instructors who are closer to their own age?

Or is it mostly irrelevant? When it comes to player development, are coaches of all ages created equal in the eyes of the youngsters they’re tutoring? More so, does age matter to those in charge of putting together minor-league coaching staffs? I asked these questions to a large cross section of players, coaches, farm directors, and front-office executives.

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Rocco Baldelli, Tampa Bay Rays first-base coach: “It can work great if it’s the right individual. That’s what it basically boils down to. Is it difficult for a younger person to come in and coach players who are almost their age? It can be, but it can also be an attribute. Regardless of the job you’re talking about, if you believe in that person’s ability to learn and make adjustments, you have the right person. Their age won’t matter.

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Necessity is said to be mother of all invention. It continues to be the impetus for creativity and movement away from tradition in Major League Baseball.

Jeff and I participated in the first postseason chat, a four-hour and three-minute affair Tuesday night that had moments of comedy, drama, soberness — and which featured 2,300 questions from a wonderfully engaged and spirited FanGraphs audience.

The subject of bullpen-ing came up early in the game. This isn’t surprising: it’s been a story of some interest heading into this postseason. I, for example, recently proposed that the Yankees ought to bullpen the Wild Card game. The Yankees, of course, have a dominant bullpen, the first major-league relief corps to feature five arms to have recorded strikeout rates of 30% or better. Aroldis Chapman looks like he’s back, hitting 103 mph, and he’s supported by Dellin Betances, Chad Green, Tommy Kahnle, and David Robertson.

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Zack Granite is newly 25 years old, and less newly a rookie. Though he was drafted by and plays for the Twins, he was born on Staten Island and always rooted for the Yankees. He has a dog named Jeter. He grew up with the flourishing Yankees dynasty, and for some time it was all he’d ever known. I’m not sure, but it stands to reason that a younger Granite had an imagination. And I’m not sure, but it stands to reason that a younger Granite imagined one day helping the Yankees to win in the playoffs.

You could call it a cruel twist that, in Granite’s playoff debut, the Yankees should occupy the other dugout. Not that Granite was even supposed to play, but shortly after the beginning, Byron Buxton’s back started to hurt. Granite entered as the replacement, and he even reached on a sixth-inning single. In the eighth, he nearly reached again. With one out and none on, Granite’s speed might’ve opened the door just a crack. Granite would’ve stood on first base, after Tommy Kahnle couldn’t handle a flip. But Granite didn’t touch the bag. It was all more of a fly-by.

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Aroldis Chapman is in the first year of the largest contract ever before awarded to a reliever. Chapman earned that contract for having proven himself as perhaps the most overwhelming one-inning pitcher in the modern history of the sport. Other relievers have been great, sure, but Chapman was something extraordinary. Extraordinary, that is, until a strange thing happened. Around the middle of the summer, Chapman was bad.

Perhaps he was bad only by his own standards. He was still throwing his fastball a hundred miles per hour. But Chapman struggled enough to lose his job as the Yankees’ closer. Over one stretch covering a month and a half, Chapman allowed a mediocre .724 OPS, with a strikeout-to-walk ratio well under 2. The arm strength was there, but the results were not, and, that fast, Chapman started to feel unreliable. Aroldis Chapman, of all people. He lost his air of invulnerability.

Since September began, Chapman has made 12 appearances. He’s generated two walks and 20 strikeouts, allowing a .250 OPS. Chapman took over Tuesday’s wild-card game after the outcome felt like a foregone conclusion, but he didn’t allow the Twins to open the door. He struck out Robbie Grossman swinging. He struck out Brian Dozier swinging. Joe Mauer managed to fight off a full-count delivery for a ground-ball single the other way, but then Chapman struck out Jorge Polanco swinging. It felt so perfectly normal.

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Over the course of the last year, I’ve published projections for a boatload of prospects at this site. Now that the 2017 regular season is complete, I thought it might make sense to review how KATOH has performed with specific players. Last week, I looked at some instances where KATOH’s forecasts looked prescient. For this particular post, I’d like to look at some instances where KATOH’s forecasts have looked foolish.

Allow me to point out immediately that none of this is conclusive: we’re only a year (or less) into the big-league careers of the players included here. Labeling a six-year projection as definitively “right” or “wrong” following a single season is obviously premature. That said, we undoubtedly have a much clearer picture of these players’ futures than we did six months ago.

This analysis compares each player’s industry-wide consensus to his stats-only KATOH projection — which does not consider a player’s ranking on prospect lists. Stats-only is KATOH’s purest form and also the version that disagrees most fervently with the establishment. Note that I did not consider cases where all parties were wrong, such as Aaron Judge. Although KATOH’s No. 53 ranking of Judge looks silly now, it was on par with other rankings, which ranged from 44th to 145th.

Picking players for this article was obviously somewhat subjective. So if you have a player in mind that I neglected to mention, feel free to complain about it in the comments!

Prospects KATOH Liked
Here are the players on whom KATOH has typically been more bullish than other outlets. Players are listed in general order of “failure” in 2017.

Dylan Cozens, OF, Philadelphia

Last winter, KATOH ranked Cozens as the top prospect in baseball. The large outfielder proceeded to tarnish my reputation by hitting .210/.301/.418 with a 36% strikeout rate in Triple-A this year. There was a lot to like about Cozens’ 2016: he mashed 40 homers, stole 21 bases, and graded out well in right field — all as a 22-year-old at Double-A. But evaluators were concerned about his strikeouts and predicted his power numbers would crater outside of Reading. The book is far from closed on Cozens, who KATOH still sees him as a back-end top-100 guy. But tippy-top prospects don’t have seasons like Cozens’ 2017.

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As expected, the Yankees beat the Twins in the AL Wild Card game last night. Unexpectedly, they won by asking four relievers to get 26 outs after Luis Severino couldn’t get out of the first inning. And in that victory, it was essentially impossible to not notice the difference in power between the two clubs.

Aaron Judge is the game’s most powerful player, so New York always has some kind of lead when it comes to raw strength, but this team isn’t defined just by their hulking right fielder. This Yankees team is built around power everywhere.

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