FanGraphs Baseball

The thing about hype is it makes the expectations almost impossible to meet. Hype is what makes you excited for an event, but then it’s up to the event itself to live up to the billing, and the standards can be impossible. Game 7 of a playoff series? That’s a high bar. Game 7 of the World Series? Higher bar still. Game 7 of a World Series featuring the two teams with the longest active title droughts? The hype spirals out of control. The game couldn’t possibly be what you’d want it to be.

That game was what you’d want it to be. Even if you weren’t rooting for the Cubs, you might never see a better baseball game. Maybe you’ve seen games that were as good, but you couldn’t top that, not for the drama, and not for how very Baseball it was. It was a one-run game that went to extra innings. The winning pitcher was the world-class reliever who blew a three-run lead. The losing pitcher wasn’t even supposed to have to pitch. The Cubs jumped out against the Indians’ unhittable ace, who for the first time was left in too long. The Indians clawed back with a two-run wild pitch that got by a catcher inserted specifically to help the pitcher on the mound. That same catcher, who’s now retired, then hit a home run off one of the only relievers who might be better than the Cubs reliever who later blew the save. Both teams used starters in relief. There was a rain delay and a bunt for a strikeout. The last out of the game was made by Michael Martinez. The final go-ahead run was scored by Albert Almora.

Almora scored on Ben Zobrist’s double. That made it 7-6, and Cubs fans were once again able to breathe. In a game packed full of moments, that might have wound up the moment, the moment that set the Cubs on their course. Before that moment, there was a different one. Almora scored on the double. He first had to get himself into position to do so.

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The Chicago Cubs just won the World Series, their first in 108 years. The way this team is constructed, though, they might not have to wait long for another one.

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Congratulations to the Cubs. The curse is dead, and the best team in baseball gets to call themselves the champs. What a game. What a series. What a season.

Source: FanGraphs

Ben and Sam banter about Aroldis Chapman and answer emails about title droughts, the Cubs and consecutive pennants, scoreless streaks, World Series strategy, the recent rarity of Game Sevens, playoff ads, and more.

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One day, when we look back upon the 2016 postseason, mostly positive memories will be evoked. The end of longstanding World Series droughts for both combatants, the Cleveland Indians and Chicago Cubs, culminating in a classic seven-game battle. The underdog Indians laying waste to the remainder of the AL field. The heavily favored Cubs scrapping to get past both the Dodgers and the Giants. The emergence of Francisco Lindor, Corey Kluber, Kris Bryant, Addison Russell and others on the postseason stage, etc.

Let’s not kid ourselves, however, regarding the enduring legacy of this postseason; it will be Andrew Miller, Aroldis Chapman, Kenley Jansen, and yes, Zach Britton, and the way they were used, and not used. It will be the way that one of the underpinnings of modern sabermetric thought busted into the mainstream in a big way: the postseason that ace relievers, not “closers” per se, became used more more optimally, in “game” situations rather than merely “save” situations.

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By the time a pitcher gets to October, his body and his mind are headed in different directions. The head can’t stop racing, but the body is battered by six months’ worth of battle. That probably seems intuitive, but it’s actually relevant tonight in a very concrete way: Cleveland right-hander Corey Kluber is once again going to climb the mound on short rest, with body and mind at odds. Here’s the good news for Indians fans, though: while the results of postseason short-rest starts isn’t great, the process — which is to say, the movement and velocity recorded on pitches — suggests that adrenaline trumps all when it comes to postseason ball.

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Last night, we all saw Joe Maddon’s level of trust in his bullpen, as he brought Aroldis Chapman in to protect a five run lead with seven outs to go. That decision told you everything you needed to know about how confident he is in the right-handers in his pen.

Tonight, I’m sure, Maddon would like to avoid using any of his relievers besides Chapman once again. With Jon Lester essentially guaranteed to pitch, the ideal Cubs plan is likely to have Hendricks hand the ball to Lester, who hands the ball to Chapman, who closes out the game. Two good starters and their best reliever, combining for nine innings in some fashion, with a big party at the end. It works on paper if everyone pitches well.

But it comes with one big question mark; who relieves Kyle Hendricks if he needs to be bailed out of a jam?

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It was an ugly night for Cleveland for a variety of reasons. First and foremost, they lost Game Six of the World Series. Second, they allowed nine runs. Nine.

Third, Tyler Naquin happened. In a variety of ways. What does that mean, exactly? First, there was this Bull Durham-esque snafu in the first inning.

Kris Bryant had already gone yard with two outs in the first inning. Anthony Rizzo and Ben Zobrist had followed with singles. Addison Russell, as shown above, then poked a very catchable fly ball out to right-center field. We may never know what temporary madness possessed Naquin at this moment. We do know that he didn’t grade out as a very good center fielder this year, nor did possess the most sterling defensive reputation before his ascension to the big leagues.

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The biggest play of last night’s Game Six was a defensive one, but not in a positive manner: a miscommunication between Tyler Naquin in center field and Lonnie Chisenhall in right failed to result in a catch. Two runs scored for Chicago, and the Cubs took a 3-0 lead in just the first inning. The biggest strategic decision, meanwhile, concerned the use of Aroldis Chapman by Joe Maddon, as Chicago’s manager went to his closer in the seventh inning of a 7-2 game. It’s hard to discount the the implications either of Cleveland’s defensive misplay or Maddon’s bullpen management on the outcome of this World Series.

However, Game Six of the World Series also featured an unimportant strategic decision that facilitated some unimportant defensive plays. Even though he scored no runs and recorded zero hits, the decision to start Jason Heyward was likely worth several runs for the Cubs. And even if those runs didn’t ultimately represent the difference between a win and a loss, Heyward’s presence in the game nevertheless revealed how an offensively struggling but defensively forceful player can impact a result.

In the fourth inning of last night’s contest, right after Mike Napoli singled in Jason Kipnis to make the game 7-1, the Chicago Cubs possessed a 94.8% chance of victory. The leverage index was a fairly low 0.47, so even a positive result for Cleveland was unlikely to influence the game greatly. Facing Jake Arrieta, Jose Ramirez struck a ball that lands for a hit 56.8% of the time and goes for extra bases 20% of the time.

Here’s the end of that play:

At first glance, the play appears challenging for Heyward but hardly impossible. As mentioned above, batted balls with similar exit velocity and launch angles were caught around 43% of the time. Nearly half, in other words. What that figure doesn’t account for, however, is Heyward’s position at the start of the play relative to the location of the ball in the field. We can go a little further with the Statcast data.

Jason Heyward’s catch in 4th. Ball off Jose Ramirez’s bat = 97.9 mph. Hang time = 2.9 seconds. Distance = 35 feet. H/t: @mike_petriello

— Dan Hayes (@CSNHayes) November 2, 2016

By doing a few calculations, we can determine that, if he were running in a 40-yard dash in this case, Heyward would have recorded a time of roughly 9.9 seconds, which is really slow for a 40-yard dash. Of course, when Jason Heyward hears the ball off the bat, he doesn’t simply get to sprint straight forward in a line. He has no idea in which direction he might have to run — backwards, forwards, left, right. He decides where to run by looking at a small white object that begins its trajectory roughly 300 feet away while also traveling at 98 mph.

We rarely see an outfielder’s first step when watching the game because both our own eyes and also the cameras themsleves are focused on the batter-pitcher matchup. Heyward is very good at making quick decisions, though: the first step on his acrobatic play near the wall in Game Five occurred within 0.17 seconds.

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