FanGraphs Baseball

I don’t think anyone expected that. Sure, the Indians always had a chance against the Red Sox, and having a chance means a shot at a series win, but no one would’ve forecast the Indians to move on with a sweep. The Indians produced against Red Sox pitching, scoring 15 times in three games. At least as importantly, the Red Sox didn’t produce against Indians pitching, scoring seven times while batting .214. The Indians, you remember, lost two of their three best starters toward the end of the year, and that seemed to spell almost certain doom.

But really, it shouldn’t have been taken that way. No one would want to lose Carlos Carrasco. No one would want to lose Danny Salazar. Both those guys would make the Indians a stronger playoff ballclub. But we just can’t get out of the habit of over-valuing a starting rotation. Especially come playoff time. Even though we all know the game in October is different, we just can’t quite get it to sink in. So the Indians’ playoff pitching staff was going to be underrated.

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To be clear, there are two postings here.

Position: Philadelphia Phillies Senior Quantitative Analyst – Baseball Research & Development

Location: Philadelphia
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Here on FanGraphs, we host live, interactive win-expectancy graphs for every game, and they usually don’t look like this:

It’s rare for any one of these graphs to stretch 13 innings. It’s rare for the team in complete control for innings six through eight to wind up losing the game. It’s rare for the biggest play in regulation to read “J Arrieta Home Run.” It’s rare for there to be such a large and sudden spike at the end. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen that parabolic shape in the middle before.

Game 2 of the National League Division Series between the Giants and Cubs was bonkers. Let’s address all 10 times it looked like it might be over.

No. 1 – First inning

If you’re an extremist, this thing might’ve looked over before it started. Sure, the Cubs were up two games to none in the series and had clearly looked like the better team thus far, but this is Madison Bumgarner we’re talking about, whose soul exits the body and watches over its human figure pitching from above during the postseason. I don’t know why that little box is showing regular-season stats over on the right. The more compelling graphic would’ve been the postseason version, which just consists of “as many as there are” in the games and innings columns and a bunch of zeros in the rest.

Actual win expectancy: 54%, Giants

Perceived win expectancy: EvenYearBumgarner%, Giants
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The Dodgers, of course, announced that they’re going with Kershaw today. But I’d still have gone the other way.

It’s becoming an October tradition; as the Dodgers head into game four of the NLDS, they are considering whether to bring back Clayton Kershaw on three days rest. As I sat down to talk about their decision on who to pitch today, I realized this is the third time in four years we’ve written this same post.

Back in 2013, Jeff Sullivan wrote about the decision between starting Kershaw or Ricky Nolasco. In 2014, Jeff again wrote about the call to pick Kershaw over Dan Haren. Last year, apparently we got distracted by Chase Utley’s slide or something, because we didn’t appear to write about the Dodgers using Kershaw in game four of the series against the Mets, but that happened too; the Dodgers have thrown Kershaw in games one and four of the division series three straight years, bringing him back on three days rest each time.

This year, though, I think they should do it differently. I think they should start Julio Urias today.

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Episode 689
Dave Cameron is the managing editor of FanGraphs. During this edition of FanGraphs Audio, he discusses (specifically) Boston’s decision to use Clay Buchholz as their starter for Game 3 against Cleveland and (more universally) which sort of adjustments and changes ought to be regarded as permanent and which merely a fleeting tactical advantage. Cameron also examines baseball’s slide rule and briefly considers the 2016-17 free-agent class.

This episode of the program either is or isn’t sponsored by SeatGeek, which site removes both the work and also the hassle from the process of shopping for tickets.

Don’t hesitate to direct pod-related correspondence to @cistulli on Twitter.

You can subscribe to the podcast via iTunes or other feeder things.

Audio after the jump. (Approximately 39 min play time.)

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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, including a collection of outfielders and then Rajai Davis.

Other Players: Mike Napoli / Wilson Ramos / Kurt Suzuki / Chase Utley / Matt Wieters.

Neil Walker (Profile)
Some relevant information regarding Walker:

• Has averaged 544 PA and 3.3 WAR over last three seasons.
• Has averaged 3.6 WAR per 600 PA* over last three seasons.
• Recorded a 3.8 WAR in 458 PA in 2016.
• Is projected to record 2.7 WAR per 600 PA**.
• Is entering his age-31 season.
• Made $10.6M in 2016, after avoiding arbitration in January.

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

Click here to estimate years and dollars for Walker.

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In this year’s postseason, relievers have received attention based on when (or if) they have entered the game. For the Toronto Blue Jays and closer Roberto Osuna, there were questions a week ago whether Osuna would be able to pitch at all in the postseason after being removed from the Wild Card victory over the Baltimore Orioles with a shoulder issue. Osuna pitched to four batters in that game, retiring them all and striking out two, but his availability for the recently completed Division Series against the Texas Rangers was in some doubt. Osuna has laid those doubts, as well as those that accompanied a less-than-stellar end-of-season run, to rest.

If you were to hazard a guess at which Blue Jays player was most important in this year’s playoffs — at least in terms of increasing the probability of winning games — you probably would not guess Roberto Osuna. You would also be right not to guess Osuna, as Josh Donaldson’s nine hits and a walk in 19 postseason plate appearances led to a team-leading .635 WPA over the Jays’ four postseason games. Osuna, however, is second on the team WPA leaderboard, despite pitching in only three of the four games and recording just five total innings.

Osuna, despite his shoulder issue, has now appeared in three of the four Blue Jays playoffs games (having not been needed in the Game 1 rout of the Rangers). In this year of the non-traditional closer use in the postseason, Osuna has yet to come in at the start of the ninth in a save situation. Every single appearance has been incredibly important — and has often coincided with the most important moments of each game, by leverage index.

In the playoffs this year, Blue Jays pitchers have faced 15 batters at a point in the game when the leverage index had reached 2.0 or greater. Osuna has recorded eight of those high-leverage plate appearances — more than J.A. Happ (who had four in his start), Francisco Liriano (one), or Joe Biagini (two, one of which was a run-scoring double by Mitch Moreland in Game 2).

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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 2016-17 free-agent market.

Below are links to ballots for five of this year’s free agents, including some catchers, a first baseman, and a second baseman.

Wilson Ramos (Profile)
Some relevant information regarding Ramos:

• Has averaged 463 PA and 1.8 WAR over last three seasons.
• Has averaged 1.8 WAR per 450 PA* over last three seasons.
• Recorded a 3.5 WAR in 523 PA in 2016.
• Is projected to record 2.3 WAR per 450 PA**.
• Is entering his age-29 season.
• Made $5.4M in 2016 after avoiding arbitration in January.

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

Click here to estimate years and dollars for Ramos.

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I know that the game has moved on — as I write this right now, the Nationals are beating the Dodgers 4-3 in the sixth inning of Game 3. This game will turn on so many things, a handful of them yet to happen. But I still want to take you back quickly to the bottom of the first. The Dodgers jumped out to a 1-0 lead, and Yasiel Puig came up with one out and a runner on second. He took three balls, then the count ran full, then Gio Gonzalez attacked Puig inside with a heater.

Let’s slow that down, with a ball-tracker that I will choose to believe in this instance is reliable:

That’s a good general pitch location, and that’s also a good job of receiving by Jose Lobaton. I’ve seen far, far worse pitches thrown in full counts. But that pitch isn’t a strike. That pitch isn’t even a borderline strike. That pitch is a ball, full stop. Gameday provides its own evidence:

From Baseball Savant, here are the 2016 full-count pitches called strikes against right-handed hitters. I’ve highlighted the pitch to Puig in blue.

I’m not writing this because I have a rooting interest — I don’t. And I’m not writing this because I think it’ll cost the Dodgers the game. I’m writing this only because it was an important pitch in an important game, and this was a pretty extremely bad strike call. Not the worst of all time or anything, but bad nevertheless, and this was the whole difference between a walk and a strikeout. Puig didn’t do anything wrong. He did what he was supposed to do exactly right — he took a pitch even in a situation in which he might’ve been feeling aggressive. Puig should’ve been rewarded for his patience, but instead Gonzalez was rewarded for, I don’t know, throwing a ball with precision?

I don’t want to dwell. Again, the game has moved past this, and the first inning has long since been forgotten. But had this pitch been called properly, it would’ve made a win-expectancy difference for the Dodgers of about five percentage points. Another way of thinking about it: the run value of calling this a strike instead of a ball was 0.6. More than half of a run, which is substantial, as individual pitch-calls go. We don’t get a whole lot of opportunities to come to the defense of Yasiel Puig’s plate discipline. Yasiel Puig should’ve drawn a walk. I don’t know what the hell this must do to a player psychologically.