Both the Phillies and Diamondbacks entered this Championship Series on a playoff tear, combining for just one loss during their four series wins. But in the battle for the NL pennant, one team’s good fortune would have to end, and so far, Arizona has been unable to deal with the buzzsaw that is Philadelphia’s roster. A day after a close loss headlined by the three home runs Zac Gallen surrendered, the Phillies hit another trio of dingers off the Diamondbacks’ no. 2 starter, Merrill Kelly, and it only continued downhill from there.

While playoff games have been increasingly defined by the reliever parades enabled by an abundance of off days, this game was a battle of two workhorse starters. Aaron Nola and Kelly both rank in the top 10 in baseball in innings over the past two years, and are consistently available to go deep into games. A lot happened in the final three innings on Tuesday, a stretch that exposed the stark difference in the quality of these two bullpens, but we can focus much of our attention on the rotation members dueling from each team.

Nola’s performance this year was uncharacteristically poor by his standards. He’s always possessed some of the best command in baseball, and he throws a hellacious two-planed knuckle curve as his strikeout pitch. But despite that, he had a 101 ERA- and 90 FIP- this season. His strikeout and walk rates were still great, but his home run rate ballooned, as he couldn’t keep his pitches away from the middle of the plate. His pitches in the “heart” zone, as measured by Statcast, were too predictable, costing him seven runs compared to average after dominating that area previously. It meant that his results had a hard ceiling despite having great stuff and avoiding free baserunners. But his six scoreless innings in Game 2 brought his ERA this postseason down to a tiny 0.96; more impressively, he hasn’t allowed a single home run in his three playoff starts. Let’s see how his arsenal shut down Arizona’s bats. Read the rest of this entry »

2:01

Jay Jaffe: Good afternoon, folks, and welcome to the LCS edition of my weekly chat. Yesterday we had a couple of games that got blown open early but tightened up late, and we now have the Rangers heading back to Arlington up 2-0 and the Phillies up 1-0 on the Diamondbacks after Schwaber, Harper, and Castellanos hit about 1300 feet worth of early homers.

2:02	Jay Jaffe: I previewed the NLCS , in case you missed it https://blogs.fangraphs.com/nlcs-preview-arizona-diamondbacks-vs-phila…

2:02	Jay Jaffe: Next up for me is a piece on Kim Ng’s departure from Miami and hopefully a Corbin Carroll thing for later this week.

2:02	Jay Jaffe: anyway, on with the show

2:06

Jay Jaffe: I’ll have more tomorrow but I think there were a couple of related things going on. Ng wanted to clean house a bit as far as staff to find people she was more in alignment with and bring some new voices into the organization — something that worked out well when she got to hire a new manager (Schumaker) — but owner Bruce Sherman apparently wasn’t amenable to that. He’s planning on bringing in a president of baseball operations, so she essentially would have been demoted to second-in-command, which doesn’t play well when you’ve just guided a team to its first full season above .500 in 14 years and their first full-season playoff berth in 20.

Read the rest of this entry »

Clarke Schmidt had mixed results in his first season as a big league starter. The 27-year-old New York Yankees right-hander took the mound 33 times (including once as a reliever) and won nine of 18 decisions while logging a 4.64 ERA and a 4.42 FIP. Working primarily in five- and six-inning stints — 21 of his outings were between 5.0 and 6.2 innings — he allowed 169 hits and fanned 149 batters over 159 frames.

A new pitch played prominently in what is now a well-balanced repertoire. Schmidt added a cutter this year, and while it wasn’t his best offering results-wise — that honor goes to his curveball — it was his most used. All told, his usage breakdown was 28.1% cutters, 27.4% slider/sweepers, 23.9% sinkers, 19.1% curveballs, and 1.5% changeups.

Thirteen months ago, I sat down with Schmidt to discuss his sweeping slider, a pitch that was referred to in the subsequently published piece as a “baby whirly.” This past September, I circled back to hear about his cutter — and I had something else in mind as well. With the definition of “sweeper” increasingly becoming a matter of debate, I wanted to know how he currently labels the most horizontal of his offerings.

———

David Laurila: What is the story behind your cutter?

Clarke Schmidt: “The reason they wanted me to add the cutter was lefties. The idea was that I could throw a fastball to lefties and be able to induce either A) weak contact or B) a swing-and-miss. That was the real reason, and then once I started throwing it we realized that my arm action was built even more for a cutter than they thought. The metrics on my cutter are really good. Analytically it became one of my best pitches, which is why they were like, ‘Why don’t we up the usage of this?’ Read the rest of this entry »

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 Evan Carter and Corbin Carroll have been great too. Forget trusting your veterans – the playoffs are about trusting your best players. Bryce Harper is important because he’s a great player, 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. I’ve already covered the losing managers of the Wild Card round and the ALDS. Dave Roberts is up next.
Read the rest of this entry »

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about the abrupt end of Kim Ng’s tenure as the general manager of the Miami Marlins, Alyssa Nakken interviewing for the Giants’ manager job, the Rangers taking a 2-0 lead on the Astros in the ALCS, and the new Netflix documentary The Saint of Second Chances. Then (48:12) Ben talks to the documentary’s subject, baseball maverick Mike Veeck, about why he wanted to tell his up-and-down-and-up story, his legendary dad, Hall of Famer Bill Veeck, and the colorful Veeck clan, Disco Demolition Night, the origins of modern independent baseball, Darryl Strawberry’s season with the St. Paul Saints, the secret to a great baseball promotion, the Savannah Bananas, whether MLB could ever have a Veeck-ian owner again, MLB’s control (and contraction) of the minor leagues, and more.

Audio intro: Nate Emerson, “Effectively Wild Theme”
Audio outro: Josh Busman, “Effectively Wild Theme”

Link to Ghiroli on Ng
Link to Passan on Ng
Link to Kepner on Ng
Link to MLBTR on Nakken
Link to Ben Clemens on the Astros
Link to Ken Rosenthal on Yordan
Link to article on Jordan’s flu game
Link to exploding-scoreboard video
Link to The Saint of Second Chances
Link to documentary trailer
Link to MiLB.com on Mike Veeck
Link to list of Veeck’s promotions
Link to Vice on Disco Demolition Night
Link to Ben on Bill Veeck 1
Link to Ben on Veeck 2
Link to Ben on Veeck 3
Link to Ben on Veeck 4
Link to SABR on the ’43 Phillies
Link to BJO on book inaccuracies
Link to SABR’s Bill Veeck bio
Link to Craig Wright on Paige
Link to EW interview about the Bananas
Link to Veeck As in Wreck
Link to The Hustler’s Handbook
Link to Fun is Good
Link to Mike’s website
Link to playoff-stats spreadsheet
Link to The Ringer-Verse podcast
Link to House of R podcast

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PHILADELPHIA – The last time the Arizona Diamondbacks won a game in the NLCS, Randy Johnson took the win and Erubiel Durazo hit the game-winning home run off Tom Glavine. It’s been a minute.

When Diamondbacks ace Zac Gallen took the mound in Philadelphia, he was hoping to make a dent in that history; the Phillies have been red hot all October, but so has Arizona, and Gallen’s arm is one of the best weapons the D-backs have. But Kyle Schwarber hit the first pitch Gallen threw off the video board on the facing of the second deck at Citizens Bank Park. A minute? The Phillies took the lead in seconds. Two batters later, Bryce Harper crushed another fastball out to right center. It wasn’t quite over before it began, but the Phillies took the lead on the first pitch they saw and never gave it up.

“The reality is we were probably going to lose a game at some point,” Evan Longoria offered after the game, attempting to put the defeat in perspective. But the Phillies roughed Gallen up early and held off a series of late rallies to win 5-3. Surely it was not the manner of defeat anyone from the Diamondbacks had in mind. Read the rest of this entry »

Have you ever seen one of those horror movies with an unstoppable villain? They might get knocked down. A truck might run them over. They might fall out of a plane, or off a bridge, or into a bottomless pit. But then the camera cuts just so, and there’s that silhouette, lurching back into view, pursuing our protagonist despite the fact that they should have been down for the count.

I’m not making any fandom or value judgments here, but if you’re rooting against the Astros, they can feel like a movie monster. The Rangers did the baseball equivalent of knocking them over the head with a club in ALCS Game 2. They came out swinging against Justin Verlander last night to some success, but they really hit the accelerator against Framber Valdez in the first inning on Monday.

Marcus Semien smacked a first-pitch sinker past Jeremy Peña. Corey Seager blooped a first-pitch sinker into left. A batter later, Adolis García lined a first-pitch sinker into right for an RBI single. Mitch Garver never saw a sinker, but he did muscle the first in-zone pitch he saw to left, a sinking liner that brought home another run. Sprinkle in a bit of bad Houston luck — Valdez fumbled a comebacker for an error, Nathaniel Lowe hit a seeing-eye single on the kind of weak grounder that Valdez usually feasts on — and suddenly it was 4–0 Rangers. Read the rest of this entry »

Gabriel Moreno is one of several exciting and talented young backstops in the big leagues (and these playoffs). After coming to Arizona with Lourdes Gurriel Jr. in exchange for Daulton Varsho, he got the opportunity to be the primary catcher and show off the skills he displayed in the minor leagues. He made an immediate defensive impact despite his offensive struggles in the beginning of the season; when the league was running wild in the spring, he was prepared, throwing guys out left and right. But his bat took a second to come around, likely due to ongoing discomfort in his lead shoulder. He eventually made a trip to the injured list, but when he returned, he looked as healthy as can be, posting a 141 wRC+ in the second half and playing excellent defense.

During the Diamondbacks’ improbable run and five-game postseason win streak, there is no question that Corbin Carroll has been their best player. But when you sweep a team that finished with 16 more wins in the regular season, you’re going to need more help, and Moreno has been a formidable co-star. He’s continued his hot streak to close the season into October. With more health, his row and barrel tip have gotten looser and turned his ability to make consistent hard contact into loud home runs in timely situations. He only had seven in the regular season across 380 plate appearances, but his launch angle distribution improved dramatically when he got healthy:

All this to say, it’s not shocking to see him take swings like his 419-foot home run against Clayton Kershaw in Game 1 of the NLDS — a swing that came on the tail end of an impressive at-bat. Read the rest of this entry »

The 2023 regular season was a tumultuous one for the Arizona Diamondbacks. They were one of baseball’s best teams in the first half, with the fourth-best record in the league on July 1. Then in the month of July, they went just 8-16, tied for the second-worst record in baseball. They started August off on a nine-game losing streak before going 11-2 in their next 13 games. The rest of the season would be much of the same – losing five of six, then winning five of six, and so on and so forth. The club secured a playoff spot with an 8-2 stretch from September 15–27, before losing its final four regular-season games. From a playoff-odds perspective, the roller coaster looked like this:

If one of the defining characteristics of the Diamondbacks’ 2023 regular season was volatility, the bullpen was no exception. After a slow start, the group had a strong May, collapsed to be one of the league’s worst in July, and battled back to have a quite effective final month. By the time they’d played 162, 30 pitchers had appeared in relief for Arizona – just two NL teams used more. Entering a short-series playoff format (have you heard about the short-series playoff format?), the pressure was on for the rostered subset to find their best, holding leads when they had them and keeping games close when they didn’t. Through two rounds, they’ve more than answered the call:

Read the rest of this entry »

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 Evan Carter and the entire Diamondbacks roster have been great too. Forget trusting your veterans – the playoffs are about trusting your best players. Carlos Correa is important because he’s a great player, 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. I’ve already covered the losing managers of the Wild Card round, as well as Brandon Hyde’s efforts. Today, it’s Rocco Baldelli’s turn. Read the rest of this entry »