Left-hander Julio Urias starts for the Dodgers tonight in Game 4 of the NLCS against the Cubs. Here’s something you probably already know about him: he’s really young. Urias turned 20 on August 12 of this year. For the purposes of websites such as this one (which use July 1 as a cutoff), that places Urias in the midst of his age-19 season. When Urias pitched in relief during Game 5 of the NLDS, he became the fourth-youngest pitcher in major-league history (Bert Blyleven, Ken Brett, Don Gullett) to pitch in the postseason, per Baseball-Reference Play Index — and he’s already pitched more innings than Brett and as many as Blyleven. With his first pitch today, he’ll become the youngest pitcher in postseason history to record a start. By comparison, consider that most of the players on both the Cubs and Dodgers had never even appeared in a professional game at the same age Urias ascends to the spotlight.

Only seven players in history have started a playoff game at an age younger than Urias, and they were all position players. They are, in declining order of age at playoff debut: Justin Upton, Claudell Washington, Bryce Harper, Mickey Mantle, Andruw Jones, Phil Cavarretta, and Freddie Lindstrom. 

That’s one way to frame Urias’s accomplishment. Another? By means of this brief timeline concerning the distinction Urias is about to receive:

• On October 9, 1913, Bullet Joe Bush started for the Philadelphia Athletics in the third game of the World Series. he pitched a complete game as the A’s beat the New York Giants 8-2. Bush was 20 years and 316 days old. Bush would hold the record until…
• October 3, 1984, when Bret Saberhagen started for the Kansas City Royals in Game 2 of the ALCS against the Detroit Tigers. The Tigers won 5-3. Saberhagen was 20 years and 175 days old.
• Urias is 20 years and 68 days old today.

Urias’s age is not remarkable solely for how it relates to his postseason appearance and playoff start. His regular-season performance this year, even in limited innings, represents one of the better seasons in history for a player his age. In 77 innings this season, Urias put up a 3.39 ERA and 3.17 FIP, which was good enough to produce a 1.8 WAR. Over the last 40 years, only seven players, position players included, have recorded a better WAR number in a season at 19 years of age or younger: Read the rest of this entry »

Listen, we can all be adults here. We all understand what’s going on, in that none of us understand what’s going on. The Cleveland Indians are a few hours away from playing Game 5 of the ALCS, a game that could advance them to the World Series, and they’ll be handing the ball to Ryan Merritt in the first inning. Ryan Merritt, a 24-year-old who’s faced all of 37 batters in his major-league career, which began with a mop-up relief appearance against the Texas Rangers back in May of this year. Ryan Merritt, a lefty whose fastball sits at 87 mph and tops out at 90. Ryan Merritt, who has never appeared within the top 10 of an Indians prospects list.

I’m not going to sit here and pretend I’m some Ryan Merritt expert. Who is? About 48 hours ago, I knew as much about Ryan Merritt as the rest of you. What follows is simply a collection of more or less public information compiled from data, film, and scouting reports. Let’s get to know Ryan Merritt.

The biographical information is always a good place to start. The Indians selected Merritt in the 16th round of the 2011 draft. That’s not a very high round! He was picked 488th overall. He doesn’t have a particularly imposing frame, at 6-foot-0, 180 pounds, though BaseballAmerica’s 2015 scouting report calls it an “athletic frame.” He cracked Double-A last year, and pitched well, to the tune of a 3.51 ERA and 3.25 FIP in 141 innings. In 143 Triple-A innings this year, he ran a 3.70 ERA and 3.82 FIP.

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Free agency begins five days after the end of the World Series. As in other recent offseasons, FanGraphs is once again facilitating this offseason a contract-crowdsourcing project, the idea being to harness the wisdom of the crowds to the end of better understanding the giant and large 2016-17 free-agent market.

Below are links to ballots for five of this year’s free agents, all starting pitchers.

Other Players: Pedro Alvarez / Erick Aybar / Jose Bautista / Carlos Beltran / Billy Butler / Andrew Cashner / Bartolo Colon / Rajai Davis / Ian Desmond / R.A. Dickey / Edwin Encarnacion / Doug Fister / Dexter Fowler / Carlos Gomez / Jeremy Hellickson / Matt Holliday / Austin Jackson / Jon Jay / Matt Joyce / Brandon Moss / Mike Napoli / Angel Pagan / Steve Pearce / Wilson Ramos / Colby Rasmus / Josh Reddick / Michael Saunders / Kurt Suzuki / Mark Trumbo / Justin Turner / Chase Utley / Luis Valbuena / Neil Walker / Matt Wieters.

Rich Hill (Profile)
Some relevant information regarding Hill:

• Has averaged 48 IP and 1.7 WAR over last three seasons.
• Has averaged 6.9 WAR per 200 IP over last three seasons.
• Recorded a 3.8 WAR in 110.1 IP in 2016.
• Is projected to record 6.9 WAR per 200 IP**.
• Is entering his age-37 season.
• Made $6.0M in 2016, as part of deal signed in November 2015.

*That is, a roughly average number of innings for a starting pitcher.
**Prorated version of final updated 2016 depth-chart projections available here.

Click here to estimate years and dollars for Hill.

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Maybe you know who Carl Edwards Jr. is. Maybe you’re a Cubs fan, or remember him from prospect lists. Maybe you wondered who that 120-pound dude with the 95 mph fastball was one day and did some light googling. Maybe you, like me, have stared at this list of top four-seam fastball spin rates in the league so long you know by heart that he’s got the second-most spin in baseball.

Or maybe you don’t know who he is, and you’re just now getting acquainted. One of the first things you should maybe know about are his hands.

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Much has been made of Cleveland’s bullpen usage during the postseason. The attention has been focused primarily on two things: Terry Francona’s willingness to deviate from traditional relief roles, and the lights-out performances of Cody Allen and Andrew Miller.

Not much has been said about the limited looks hitters have been getting against Indians pitchers.

Through seven games, an Indians starter has yet to face an opposing hitter four times in the same game. They’ve faced a hitter three times on just 25 occasions, and 19 of those belong to Corey Kluber. Third-time-through-the-order penalties haven’t been injurious. Red Sox and Blue Jays batters are a combined 3-for-22 with a pair of walks and a hit-by-pitch in their third look. Francona has been masterful at pulling his starters at the right time.

He’s applied a similar approach with his management of Cleveland’s relievers. In Monday’s bullpen game, Francona flip-flopped what has been his postseason convention by using Cody Allen in the seventh, followed by Andrew Miller in a closing role. He had a reason. Read the rest of this entry »

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A table:

Here are the 10 playoff teams, sorted by playoff OPS. You see that all the figures are fairly low — this is always the case, because hitting is tougher in the playoffs. But at the bottom, the Orioles went away after one game. The Mets went away after one game. The Rangers got swept. Then there are the Cubs! The Cubs rank seventh, and they’re by far the worst among the four teams remaining. Point being, the Cubs haven’t hit much. They’re still in a good position, all things considered, but they haven’t hit much.

So what, right? It’s literally 219 plate appearances. It’s literally six games. That’s practically nothing. I just found a six-game stretch around the turn to September where the Cubs hit equally poorly, and nobody noticed. The easiest possible answer here is to point to the size of the sample. But, these are the playoffs, which means all the details matter. And there’s another factor here, one that makes easy and absolute sense.

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