As I’ve done for the past few years, I’m going to be grading each eliminated postseason manager on their decision-making. We spend the year mostly ignoring managers’ on-field contributions, because to be honest, they’re pretty small. Using the wrong reliever in the eighth inning just doesn’t feel that bad on June 22; there are so many more games still coming, and the regular season is more about managing the grind than getting every possible edge every day. The playoffs aren’t like that; with so few games to separate wheat from chaff, every last ounce of win probability matters, and managers make personnel decisions accordingly. What better time to grade them?

My goal is to evaluate each manager in terms of process, not results. If you bring in your best pitcher to face their best hitter in a huge spot, that’s a good decision regardless of outcome. Try a triple steal with the bases loaded only to have the other team make four throwing errors to score three runs? I’m probably going to call that a blunder even though it worked out. Managers do plenty of other things — getting team buy-in for new strategies and unconventional bullpen usage behind closed doors is a skill I find particularly valuable — but as I have no insight into how that’s accomplished or how each manager differs, I can’t exactly assign grades for it.

I’m also purposefully avoiding vague qualitative concerns like “trusting your veterans because they’ve been there before.” Playoff coverage lovingly focuses on clutch plays by proven performers, but Josh Jung and Geraldo Perdomo have been important, too. Forget trusting your veterans; the playoffs are about trusting your best players. Nathan Eovaldi is valuable because he’s great, not because of the number of playoff series he’s appeared in. There’s nothing inherently good about having been around a long time; when I’m evaluating decisions, “but he’s a veteran” just doesn’t enter my thought process. Read the rest of this entry »

If there’s been one constant for the Diamondbacks during their run to the World Series, it hasn’t been dominant starting pitching or shutdown relief work, though they’ve gotten their shares of both. It’s been Ketel Marte, who has not only hit safely in all 14 of Arizona’s playoff games but also set a new postseason record on Saturday night with an 18-game hitting streak, dating back to 2017. He claimed the record by slapping a two-run eighth-inning single off Martín Pérez in Game 2.

Marte’s streak began with the 2017 NL Wild Card game, when his 3-for-5 showing against the Rockies (including starter and current Ranger Jon Gray) helped the Diamondbacks to an 11–8 win. He hit in all three games of the Division Series against the Dodgers, even homering off Clayton Kershaw, but the Diamondbacks were swept nonetheless. Six years later, the 30-year-old switch-hitter picked up where he left off, with a game-tying homer off Corbin Burnes in the NL Wild Card Series opener against the Brewers — one pitch after Corbin Carroll had homered off Burnes as well. His two-run single off Freddy Peralta in Game 2 of the Wild Card Series turned a 2–1 deficit into a 3–2 lead, sending the Diamondbacks on their merry way to their first upset of the postseason. Read the rest of this entry »

Free agency begins five days after the end of the World Series. As in other recent seasons, FanGraphs is once again facilitating a contract crowdsourcing project, with the idea being to harness the wisdom of the crowd to better understand and project the 2023-24 free agent market.

In recent years, we’ve added a few features to these ballots based on reader feedback. You now have the option to indicate that a player will only receive a minor-league contract, or won’t receive one at all. If there is a player option, team option, or opt out in a player’s contract, you’ll be able to indicate whether you think he will remain with his current team or become a free agent. Numbers are prorated to full season where noted. The projected WAR figures are from the first cut of the 2024 Steamer600 projections.

Below are ballots for nine of this year’s free agents — in this case, a group of infielders. Read the rest of this entry »

Free agency begins five days after the end of the World Series. As in other recent seasons, FanGraphs is once again facilitating a contract crowdsourcing project, with the idea being to harness the wisdom of the crowd to better understand and project the 2023-24 free agent market.

In recent years, we’ve added a few features to these ballots based on reader feedback. You now have the option to indicate that a player will only receive a minor league contract, or won’t receive one at all. If there is a player option, team option, or opt out in a player’s contract, you’ll be able to indicate whether you think he will remain with his current team or become a free agent. Numbers are prorated to full season where noted. The projected WAR figures are from the first cut of the 2024 Steamer600 projections.

Below are ballots for nine of this year’s free agents — in this case, a group of infielders and designated hitters, including one who also moonlights as a starting pitcher. Read the rest of this entry »

This World Series has something for everyone: Up-and-coming stars, clutch heroics, veterans hanging around in search of that long-elusive ring. And if you’re like me, you know the most important question of this series is: How can I make it all about a South Carolina Gamecocks team from more than a decade ago?

This is pretty freaking cool!#Gamecocks | #WorldSeries pic.twitter.com/qIozcOe4el

— Gamecock Baseball (@GamecockBasebll) October 29, 2023

On Saturday night, Jordan Montgomery and Christian Walker took the field for a World Series game together. For a second time. Read the rest of this entry »

Shintaro Fujinami has a good understanding of how NPB compares to MLB. Prior to signing with the Oakland Athletics in January (and subsequently being traded to the Baltimore Orioles in July), the 29-year-old right-hander spent 10 seasons with the Hanshin Tigers. Along the way he faced many of Japan’s top hitters, with Central League stalwarts such as Munetaka Murakami and Kazuma Okamoto among the standouts. The latter was the first name Fujinami mentioned when I asked which of his former position-player opponents would best perform stateside.

“I think that Okamoto, the third baseman for the Tokyo Yomiuri Giants, would be pretty good here,” replied Fujinama, who went 7-8 with a 7.18 ERA over 79 relief innings in his first MLB season. “He’s a power hitter in Japan, although a power hitter there isn’t the same as here. Power hitters in Japan won’t hit 40 home runs over here like Shohei Ohtani does. But he would do well.”

A 27-year-old right-handed hitter, Okamoto slugged an NPB-best 41 home runs this year while slashing .278/.374/.585. He’s gone deep at least 30 times in each of the last six seasons, a span that includes a .274 batting average and 108 strikeouts annually. Despite the not-low K totals, Fujinami believes that Okamoto possesses the bat-to-ball skills to handle MLB pitching. Moreover, he doesn’t feel that high heaters would bedevil the Yomiuri slugger.

“He has good contact-ability, and he’s also good at hitting fastballs,” Fujinami told me during our September conversation. “The fastball velocity here is higher than it is in Japan, but I feel that Okamoto could make an adjustment to that if he came here. I think that Okamoto can hit a fastball at the top of the zone better than Murakami. If I had to pick one to bring here to the states, I would pick Okamoto.” Read the rest of this entry »

One sleepless night after Game 1 was ripped from them in heartbreaking fashion, the Diamondbacks arose from the canvas in Arlington and swung back at the Rangers en route to a dominant 9–1 victory, evening the World Series at a game apiece as the series heads to Phoenix. Arizona’s effort was led by a masterful performance from Scottsdale Desert Mountain High School and Arizona State alum Merrill Kelly, who struck out nine across seven surgical innings en route to the win. The Diamondbacks maintained a modest lead until the final three frames, when the bottom third of their order, which combined to reach base eight times on the night, piled up six runs.

Kelly is a prodigal son of sorts, a former Rays draft pick who left affiliated ball in the U.S. for four seasons in Korea before returning to MLB and his hometown Diamondbacks in 2019. Ironically, the particulars of the postseason schedule and of Arizona’s run to the Fall Classic have prevented Kelly from making a (literal) home start during this postseason, but he looked right at home in Texas on Saturday evening as he carved up one of the season’s most potent offenses. Read the rest of this entry »

For 25 outs, the Diamondbacks’ plan had worked to perfection. Zac Gallen had worked through five gritty innings, Corbin Carroll and Ketel Marte had given Arizona a lead to hand to the bullpen, and the relief corps had weathered a relentless Rangers lineup. As Paul Sewald entered in the ninth inning with a two-run lead, it looked like the Diamondbacks were on the verge of stealing a victory in Game 1 of the World Series. Corey Seager had other plans. On the first pitch he saw from Sewald, Seager launched a one-out, two-run bomb into the right field stands to tie the game at five.

With the game sent to extra innings, the momentum suddenly swung toward the Rangers, whose potent lineup could end the game quickly, even without the benefit of the Manfred Man on second base to start each inning. After a minor threat was quelled in the 10th, who else but Adolis García had the final word, blasting an opposite field, walk-off home run in the 11th to send Globe Life Field into a state of jubilation. Read the rest of this entry »

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about saying the wrong episode number in the intro to Episode 2077 and the definition of a title drought, then answer listener emails (18:45) about whether it would make sense to choose a bye in the playoffs if your opponent got to draft a player from the team it defeated, letting a non-playoff team into the playoffs via a lottery, a lineup set by the opposing team’s manager, a NOBLETIGER technicality, placing trampolines on the field, tagging a runner on an object you placed on them, a slugger setting a single-minded goal to break the single-season home run record, loving baseball but not MLB, international talent vs. minor league talent, and Clayton Kershaw playing a partial season à la Roger Clemens.

Audio intro: Xavier LeBlanc, “Effectively Wild Theme”
Audio outro: Harold Walker, “Effectively Wild Theme”

Link to Temporal Loom explainer
Link to anniversary-gift explainer
Link to types of droughts
Link to lineup-optimization post
Link to more on lineup optimization
Link to EW wiki trampoline page
Link to NOBLETIGER thread
Link to Semien tag explainer
Link to Semien tag video
Link to EW episode on Rendon
Link to league-quality comparison
Link to 2007 article on Clemens
Link to Clemens announcing return
Link to MLBTR on Hill in 2024
Link to EW emails database
Link to Ben on Jagger
Link to Ben on Super Mario Bros. Wonder

 Sponsor Us on Patreon
 Facebook Group
 Twitter Account
 EW Subreddit
 Effectively Wild Wiki
 iTunes Feed (Please rate and review us!)
 Get Our Merch!
 Email Us: podcast@fangraphs.com

Podcast (effectively-wild): Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

In the cat and mouse game that is the postseason, every decision matters, regardless of how big or small. If a marginal competitive advantage can be exploited, odds are a team will take their chance. Last year, I investigated what I thought was a key reason for the Astros’ postseason success over the last decade. The piece explored swing path diversity and how Houston had more of it than any other team from 2021 to 2022. Constructing a balanced, dynamic lineup is one of the tools teams can use to keep pitchers and opposing managers honest. There are multiple ways to define balance in a lineup, including swing aggression, whiff tendencies, speed and athleticism, and handedness. But that piece focused on variance in Vertical Bat Angle (VBA) within lineups.

If you aren’t familiar with VBA, it’s the vertical orientation of the bat at contact, where 45 degrees is a diagonal bat. It is pitch height dependent – the number goes down as height increases (flatter bat) and goes up as height decreases (steeper bat), making it vary within a player’s own swing profile. There is also variance player to player. On average, Aaron Judge and Freddie Freeman have much steeper barrels at impact than flatter-swinging hitters like Juan Soto and Randy Arozarena. VBA is one of multiple important bat tracking metrics — horizontal bat angle, point of contact, bat speed, acceleration, and time to contact are a few others — but VBA is the most easily accessible due to the computer vision work done at SwingGraphs. Read the rest of this entry »