Ben and Sam banter about how this year’s playoffs compare to last year’s, then discuss the postseason performances of Clayton Kershaw and David Price, the crazy Astros-Royals reversal, and more.
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When Steven Matz takes the bump against the Dodgers tonight, he’ll probably throw a curve once out of every five pitches. He’ll probably throw it more often than his changeup, even. And that will be remarkable for those of those who have watched Matz on his uneven path through the minor leagues.
It might even be remarkable to Matz, who talked to me about the pitch earlier this year. “I’ve really struggled with the curveball,” he admitted.
David Price now has a victory to his name in the American League Division Series, but it’s probably not how anyone imagined he would get it. In yesterday’s game, with the Blue Jays up by a score of 7-1 in the bottom of the fifth inning, manager John Gibbons took out R.A. Dickey in favor of his staff ace, installing Price into a game that was, except in the case of a cataclysm, already well in hand. Price threw 50 pitches, giving up six hits and three runs, thereby eliminating him from starting Wednesday’s deciding Game 5 in Toronto.
Yesterday, Dave wrote about how the Jays shouldn’t use Price out of the bullpen during Game 4. That article was predicated on a simple assumption: that the score of the game would be close, and a high leverage situation would push Gibbons to go to the best pitcher he had available. That method of thinking is an understandable one, and a decision many managers would make with little hesitation.
That wasn’t the case in Game 4, however. To illustrate, take a look at the Win Expectancy chart for yesterday’s game, with a highlight on the point at which Price was summoned from the bullpen:
After Robinson Chirinos singled to center with one out and Delino DeShields then flied out to center — the former being the event that sealed Dickey’s fate — the Rangers’ Win Expectancy was just 3.2%. If the argument is that Price was brought in to stifle any perceived danger, there’s isn’t really a good case for it: Chirinos’ single was a blip, a faintest hint of danger, and Dickey had been pitching well in the game up until then.
The playoffs have been a bit of a roller coaster so far. The postseason started off with dominating pitching performances from aces on the road, but then yesterday, the four games were mostly slugfests, with batters obliterating the “good pitching always beats good hitting” mantra. We’ve seen teams win with speed, power, pitching, defense, and sometimes just good luck; the games have been wildly different and wildly entertaining.
But if there’s been one consistent theme on a nightly basis, it’s been that fans of of the Cubs, Cardinals, Mets, and/or Dodgers have felt like they were getting absolutely screwed by the home plate umpires strike zone. During nearly every game of the two NLDS series, Twitter has lit up with complaints from fans who think the zone is far too wide to both sides of the plate. Now, you might say Twitter is a platform built on getting people to give knee-jerk reactions in real-time without considering the accuracy of their comments, and I’d agree with you, but the differences in number of complaints between the zones in the ALDS and NLDS have been very obvious.
And that’s because the ALDS games have been broadcast on Fox Sports 1 or MLB Network, while the NLDS games have been broadcast by TBS. And, for whatever reason, the visual box that TBS has chosen to represent the strike zone during their broadcasts is ridiculously small.
| 11:41 |
: Hi everyone! I do these now. Apologies for not being Kiley McDaniel, and furthermore for knowing little-to-nothing about prospects. You can ask me about literally anything else though! I’ll be back around noon to get things rolling
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| 12:01 |
: ok, hi!
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| 12:01 |
So the Astros cannot possibly recover from that right? |
| 12:02 |
: Sure they can! If anything, last night’s game highlighted how crazy and unpredictable baseball can be. I’m not sure game-to-game momentum is really a thing, especially when you have a good pitcher on the mound and a good team
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| 12:03 |
: Also, Johnny Cueto hasn’t exactly looked like an ace since the Royals acquired him. Baseball is weird
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| 12:03 |
Could the ALDS have gone any better from MLBs perspective? |
One of the great intrigues of the postseason is that when the final page turns on the regular season, the book slams shut. Anything that happened in the previous 162 games is firmly in the past, and anyone lucky enough to play more than that is granted a second chance to change something about the way his season is ultimately remembered, whether for good or for bad.
Forget what happened in the regular season; right now, Jorge Soler looks like a star. Carlos Correa is the clear-cut Rookie of the Year, and why would anyone question that Dallas Keuchel deserves the Cy Young Award? Haven’t you been paying attention?
Never mind that just 72 hours ago, Soler was still coming off a disappointing rookie season, Correa still trailed Francisco Lindor by more than a win on our WAR leaderboard, and Keuchel’s season-end line was still about indecipherable from David Price’s. By being on a playoff roster, every player is afforded the opportunity to write a new chapter of their history; those three happen to be taking advantage.
Jorge Soler, specifically, is having himself quite a time. There’s a problem, though, with trying to analyze a three-game stretch that covers nine plate appearances. The problem is that sometimes you end up with slash lines like 1.000/1.000/2.750, and those are just three silly numbers with slashes between. With nine plate appearances worth analyzing, it feels far more instructive to isolate them. That’s the only way you’re going to get anything out of it, at least. Rather than try to make too much out of Soler’s last nine plate appearances, let’s just find the best part about each one.
Best thing: Jorge Soler drew a walk!
After getting a pair of home runs and an RBI double from superstar rookie shortstop Carlos Correa, the Astros took a 6-2 lead into the top of the eighth inning. Protecting a four run lead just six outs to go, Houston had a 96.8% chance of winning, which would have put advanced them to the ALCS to await the winner of the Blue Jays/Rangers series.
Then Will Harris gave up consecutive singles to Alex Rios, Alcides Escobar, Ben Zobrist, and Lorenzo Cain, as the Royals singled their way back into the game. With the go-ahead run suddenly at the plate, the Astros turned to left-hander Tony Sipp to go after Eric Hosmer, but Hosmer continued the single streak, plating another run and keeping the bases loaded. The lead was down to 6-4 and the tying run was in scoring position, with Kendrys Morales, the team’s most productive hitter this year, stepping to the plate. The team’s chances of winning had fallen to 55.6%.
But even with the Royals roaring back and Morales a quality hitter, there was also some upside to the at-bat. Morales is a double play machine, frequently hitting ground balls with men on base, and lacking the speed to prevent the opponents from turning two on just about any ball hit on the infield. Morales hit in 24 double plays this year, fifth most in baseball, and if Sipp could just get him to keep the ball on the infield, the Astros could put the comeback to a halt in a hurry.
Sipp did his job, and Morales did exactly what the Royals did not what him to do; hit a one-hop bouncer back to the mound. But everything that happened after Morales hit the ball is a reminder of just how small the differences can be between winning and losing.
Sipp just missed fielding the ball himself, and if he had gloved it cleanly, that’s a 1-2-3 double play, cutting down both the run at the plate and Morales at first base. That would have been the most perfect outcome the Astros could have hoped for, but the ball ricocheted off Sipp’s glove and out to shortstop.
Well, it happened again.
I don’t need to remind you what happened last September 30, because it was one of the more memorable playoff games of our era. And then Monday, the same thing and the same team repeated. Many of the specific details weren’t alike, but the feelings were all the same — a game that was effectively over, followed by a sense of witnessing the improbable. A year ago, the Royals rallied two times. Monday, they rallied just once. Yet the odds they faced at the lowest points were similar, and thus similar odds were overcome. It doesn’t take long to develop a reputation for this. Luke Gregerson must find the Royals unkillable.
The sun was still out when the first pitch was thrown in today’s Cubs-Cardinals Game 3. That’s as it should be. Wrigley Field is all about day baseball, and with a five o’clock start, the skies didn’t begin to darken until the fourth inning.
Right from the get-go, the crowd was sonorous, and without need of “Get loud!” prompting from the video board. A fervent fan base with 100-plus years of woe in their collective conscience doesn’t require help. (Not that kind, anyway.) And kudos to Cubs chairman Tom Ricketts for recognizing it. As the Chicago Tribune’s Paul Sullivan pointed out, Ricketts has decreed that no such artificial nonsense will besmirch the NL’s oldest venue.
Wrigley roared as one when Kyle Schwarber homered in the second. Two innings later, Starlin Castro equaled the rookie’s feat and the fans roared again. When Kris Bryant and Anthony Rizzo went back-to-back in the fifth, it was downright deafening. 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 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 2015-16 free-agent market.
Below are links to ballots for five of this year’s free agents, all of them catchers.
Alex Avila (Profile)
Some relevant information regarding Avila:
*That is, a roughly average number of plate appearances for a starting catcher.
**Prorated version of final updated 2015 Steamer projections available here.
