FanGraphs Baseball

Did you hear the news? Last postseason, the Royals made quite a name for themselves. In the midst of their first playoff run in 30 years, Kansas City carved out their own brand of baseball. For the first time in a long time, “Royals baseball” meant something positive, something exciting, something worth watching. The Royals captured our hearts until the final out of Game 7, with their unique blend of speed, defense and a dominant bullpen — a postseason formula that had long lurked in the shadows of the traditional power pitching and power hitting approaches.

Did you hear the news? What’s written above still holds true, but there’s a new Royals in town. You might not have heard about them, because they haven’t yet made their feel-good World Series run that still only has something like a 1-in-3 chance of actually materializing. Also, the Old Royals are still here and they’re still quite good, and these New Royals don’t quite feel like the Old Royals, but that’s just on the surface. Dig a little deeper, and you’ll find that the Houston Astros are the New Royals.

Speed

The Astros are the New Royals because of their speed. Did you know the Astros had speed? I’m not even talking about Triples King, Evan Gattis. No, I’m talking about real speed. Did you know the Astros stole 121 bases this year? Most in the American League and 17 more than the Old Royals?

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Thursday in Toronto, you might’ve noticed that it was Sam Dyson, not Shawn Tolleson, called on to close out the Blue Jays. Or maybe you didn’t notice — neither is exactly a household name — but understanding the usual dynamics of the Rangers bullpen is understanding a key team component that allowed them to charge to the playoffs. For the first few months, that bullpen was a liability. Then it quietly improved, turning into the strength the Rangers have today.

Dyson very quickly made himself the eighth-inning guy, serving as a bridge to Tolleson in the ninth. Thursday, it wasn’t that Tolleson didn’t have Jeff Banister’s trust; he just preferred Dyson’s sinker against the bats the Blue Jays were going to send up. That much doesn’t not make sense. Dyson arrived in a deadline trade that received minimal attention, but he was thrust into a role of importance that he hasn’t given up. In thinking about what the Rangers did, it’s worth reading a wonderful article about the Nationals by Barry Svrluga.

The Nationals dealt for Jonathan Papelbon, and some people suggest that deal even undid the season. Before pulling the trigger on that move, though, general manager Mike Rizzo inquired on both Craig Kimbrel and Aroldis Chapman. Writes Svrluga:

The Nationals wouldn’t trade pitcher Lucas Giolito, one of the top pitching prospects in the game. They wouldn’t trade shortstop Trea Turner, who they thought might be the replacement for incumbent Ian Desmond someday. The Reds and Padres each wanted two of the Nationals’ top five prospects. Rizzo moved on.

Any team would’ve heard the same story — if you want a shutdown reliever at the deadline, it’s going to cost you. Neither Kimbrel nor Chapman got moved, because they were deemed too expensive. Rizzo went the Papelbon route. He was OK with that at the time. Meanwhile, Jon Daniels went another route. With Cole Hamels, he got the Phillies to include Jake Diekman. And he picked up Dyson from the Marlins, giving up a minor-league reliever and a third-string backstop. Few would raise eyebrows in response, but it looks like a stroke of genius today.

Read the rest at Just A Bit Outside.

Liam Hendriks bombed as a starter. Pitching almost exclusively in that role prior to this season, he went 3-15 with a 5.92 ERA. The ineffectiveness turned him into a nomad. The 26-year-old Australian was property of five organizations – including Toronto twice – from December 2013 to October 2014.

This year, he bolstered the Blue Jays bullpen. In 58 relief appearances, Hendriks fashioned a 2.92 ERA and a 2.14 FIP, and his strikeout (9.9 per nine innings) and walk rates (1.5) were exemplary. The righty was credited with a win in each of his five decisions.

Originally a Minnesota Twin, Hendriks was acquired by Toronto from Kansas City last Halloween-eve in exchange for Santiago Nessy. He talked about his successful transition when the Jays visited Fenway Park in September.

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Hendriks on the reasons behind his breakthrough: “I did a few things differently last offseason than I had in the past. For one, I went down to the Dominican and played there for two months. I joke around that maybe my velocity kicked up because all I ate was Dominican chicken. But no, I had a blast. Probably the main thing was doing a lot of Pilates with my wife. It’s a lot more core, a lot more stability; it’s a little bit of that explosive stuff that helps keep you strong.

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Today is one of the best (baseball) days of the year, and as such, we’ll be here to chat with you all day and all night long.

Here’s the lineup. Note that these things are constantly shifting, but this is the plan:

Texas vs. Toronto: Jeff Sullivan & David G. Temple
Houston vs. Kansas City: Craig Edwards
Chicago vs. St. Louis: August Fagerstrom
New York vs. Los Angeles: Paul Swydan & Neil Weinberg

There are rumors that Matthew Kory and Sean Dolinar may flit in and out as well. Either way, this is a murderer’s row of chatters. So stick with FanGraphs all day – we’ve got you covered like stink on a monkey!
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About a month ago, one of our editors — a certain Mr. Carson Cistulli — had me as a guest on FanGraphs Audio. He asked me questions mostly related to my life, devoting only a small portion of the hour to topics surrounding the subject (baseball) of the site for which we write. One of those questions, however, was about my fandom, and the sort of labyrinthian route to where it currently finds itself.

For those of you who didn’t catch that audio segment, I’m an ex-lifelong Red Sox fan. I know how ridiculous that sounds. I was born in Boston, spent large amounts of my childhood there, went to Fenway multiple times a year: the whole deal. In middle school Spanish class in the Virginia town I spent my adolescence in, everyone had to choose a new name to be called. I chose Nomar. The 2004 season provided an emotional return unlike anything I had experienced in my life up until that point.

But, after 2007, I slowly realized that the identity in which I had gotten so wrapped up with the Red Sox — an identity centered around loss, being out-resourced and outspent, and searching for the subtle catharsis in small moments — was gone. The team had moved on from that identity to one I wasn’t comfortable with anymore, and so I moved on from them. I moved to Oakland in 2011, spent one strange year watching Red Sox games while I guiltily rooted for the A’s, then bought season tickets.

The A’s went 68-94 this year after crashing out of the playoffs in spectacular fashion the past three seasons, and I can honestly say that they have been everything I’d hoped they’d be. Winning, in my damaged opinion, should be an exception, not a rule.

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One of the most notable changes in baseball over the last few years has been the increased emphasis on defensive positioning. The rise of data has helped coaches identify where the ball is likely going to go before it goes there, and teams have put a lot of effort into making sure they have a defender in the right place at the right time.

Which is why the Rangers first run against David Price yesterday was a little jarring. You can watch the play, which resulted in a Delino Deshields RBI single, in the highlight below.

Ryan Goins — one of the best defensive second baseman in baseball, it should be said — is left standing helplessly near the second base bag as the ball hit by Deshields rolls into the outfield, right past the area where a second baseman is normally positioned. Here’s an image of his position as the ball passed by him.

According to John Lott of the National Post, the Blue Jays were running a “back-pick” on this play, in which Goins would sneak over to the second base bag after the pitch was delivered in order to receive a throw down from catcher Russell Martin, hoping to catch the runner — Rougned Odor, in this case — off the bag for an out. And there is some merit to trying to take advantage of Odor’s baserunning, because in his brief Major League career, he’s been pretty terrible at it.

Read the rest at Just A Bit Outside.

In the National League Wild Card game, we witnessed two aces going head to head in Jake Arrieta and Gerrit Cole. Arrieta pitched just as brilliantly as he had during the regular season, throwing a shutout against the Pirates and advancing to the Division Series against the St. Louis Cardinals. Gerrit Cole could not match the Cubs’ ace as the long ball plagued him, giving up as many home runs as Arrieta has in his last 156 innings. Cole had a fantastic season and possesses a very bright future, but he will no longer be a part of any matchup of aces the rest of this postseason. The rest of us can move on and look at the next one, as Dodgers’ ace and best pitcher in baseball for several years, Clayton Kershaw, is set to take on the Mets’ best pitcher and emerging star in Jacob deGrom.

The Kershaw-deGrom matchup lacks the urgency present in the Arrieta-Cole winner-take-all encounter, but strictly in terms of the pitching matchup, Game 1 of the NLDS between the Dodgers and Mets should rival the Pirates-Cubs Wild Card game.

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Episode 602
Dave Cameron is both (a) the managing editor of FanGraphs and (b) the guest on this particular edition of FanGraphs Audio, during which edition he discusses the National League Wild Card game and the American League Wild Card games and basically nothing else.

This edition of the program is sponsored by Draft, the first truly mobile fantasy sports app. Compete directly against idiot host Carson Cistulli by clicking here.

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 43 min play time.)

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As we saw last night the Wild Card game can be wildly unfair, like a stand-up contest between Louis CK and your dad, who we both know just isn’t that funny no matter what he claims. The baseball season lasts 162 games and then two teams are plucked essentially at random, and told, “Okay guys, you get one game. Win and you get to play a real playoff series. Lose and you’re a miserable failure. Oh, and your season is over. Have fun!” It doesn’t matter how good (or bad) those teams were or what the difference between them was. One game. Go.

Much has been said about the unfairness of this system and the valid and reasonable concerns it brings up. How can we condense 162 games to one game? How can we pretend the randomness of baseball, a randomness which is often not sorted out in 162 games, can be sorted in one single game? Wouldn’t a three game series be better, or even five games? At least that would require a better accounting of themselves by the two teams involved.

It would, but how much better? I was curious what the difference would be if Major League Baseball changed the format from a one game playoff to a three game series, so I investigated and, with help from the crack team at FanGraphs, I found an excellent article by Steve Staude written for The Hardball Times from May 30, 2014. It contains a calculator that tells us, bizarrely, exactly what we are wondering. This, you understand, never happens.

Let’s get into it! According to Staude’s piece, the home team has a 54% chance of winning the game, irrespective of anything else. For purposes of simplicity, I should also note that I’m not getting into the team’s starting pitchers or lefty-righty matchups or anything like that. Just team-created winning percentages will be used here to ensure that my head does not explode. “Here lies Matthew Kory. He tried hard math. Oops.”

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