Eric A Longenhagen: Hello hello, it’s a gorgeous Fall day in Tempe and I’ve got a packed schedule that will likely compress today’s chat. I’m going to allow a couple minutes for some more questions to flow in before we begin in earnest.
12:05
Alex: What have you made of the Nationals’ hirings and how do you expect them to handle key players differently than the past regime?
12:07
Eric A Longenhagen: I think the way things have trended in Boston from a talent acquisition and development standpoint have been very positive, and I’d be stoked to have the people chiefly responsible for that helming my club. They’re young kids with a lot of juice, too. Let’s see how things continue to trend, but this feels like a strong start.
Kyle Stowers came into the year on the heels of frustration. Shuttling between Baltimore and Triple-A Norfolk, the Stanford University product put up an uninspiring 84 wRC+ over 168 plate appearances with the Orioles across the 2022-2024 seasons. Moreover, he then scuffled in his first opportunity with the Marlins. Acquired by Miami along with Connor Norby in exchange for Trevor Rogers at last year’s trade deadline, Stowers proceeded to produce just a 57 wRC+ over 172 PAs. The 2019 second-round pick hadn’t exactly reached failed-prospect territory, but he was falling well short of his potential.
This year was a different story entirely. Finally finding his footing, the 27-year-old outfielder broke out while serving as the Marlins’ everyday left fielder. Prior to having his season end early due to a left oblique strain — he played his last game on August 15 — Stowers slugged 25 home runs while slashing .288/.368/.544 with a 149 wRC+ over 457 plate appearances. For good measure, he represented the Fish in the All-Star game, and was recently named a senior circuit Gold Glove finalist.
I asked the left-handed slugger about his breakout when the Marlins visited Boston in August, a series that coincided with his season-ending injury. Was it simply a matter of his getting an extended opportunity, or was there more to it? Read the rest of this entry »
This postseason, I’m continuing my use of a new format for our managerial report cards. In the past, I went through every game from every manager, whether they played 22 games en route to winning the World Series or got swept out of the Wild Card round. To be honest, I hated writing those brief blurbs. No one is all that interested in the manager who ran out the same lineup twice, or saw his starters get trounced and used his best relievers anyway because the series was so short. This year, I’m skipping the first round, and grading only the managers who survived until at least the best-of-five series. Earlier this week, I graded Aaron Boone and A.J. Hinch. Today, we’ll continue with the two managers who lost in the National League Divisional Series, Craig Counsell and Rob Thomson.
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 the 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 or 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 Cam Schlittler and Michael Busch were also great this October. Forget trusting your veterans; the playoffs are about trusting your best players. Cristopher Sánchez is important 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.
I’m always looking for new analytical wrinkles in critiquing managerial decisions. For instance, I’ve increasingly come to view pitching decisions as a tradeoff between protecting your best relievers from overexposure and minimizing your starters’ weakest matchups, which means that I’m grading managers on multiple axes in every game. I think that almost no pitching decision is a no-brainer these days; there are just too many competing priorities to make anything totally obvious. That means I’m going to be less certain in my evaluation of pitching than of hitting, but I’ll try to make my confidence level clear in each case. Let’s get to it. Read the rest of this entry »
Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about the effect of road dominance on the postseason spectator experience and discuss NLCS Game 2 and ALCS Game 3, touching on Yoshinobu Yamamoto’s throwback complete game, the historic playoff production of Kiké Hernández, the less surprising excellence of Vladimir Guerrero Jr., a budding Dodgers backlash, pitcher usage when a team is trailing, how to handle Humpy, and much more. Then (1:16:22) they answer listener emails about the ethics of October rooting, what to call two-game sweeps, “representing” the tying run, great takes on great pitches, and players who lost “local hero” status.
You could be forgiven for having thought that Max Scherzer had reached the end of the line. For the second season in a row, the three-time Cy Young winner and future Hall of Famer missed significant time due to injuries, and when he was available, he struggled like never before. The 41-year-old righty put up the majors’ highest ERA in the first inning (12.96), had issues with tipping pitches, and after allowing 25 runs in his final 25 innings, missed the cut for the Division Series roster. Yet on Thursday, with the Blue Jays trailing the Mariners two games to one in the ALCS, Scherzer turned back the clock, holding Seattle to just two runs over 5 2/3 innings while an aggressive offense chased Mariners starter Luis Castillo in the third inning. With Andrés Giménez and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. both homering for the second straight night, the Blue Jays won 8-2 to even the series.
Scherzer, who had last pitched in a game on September 24, added to the Mad Max lore, displaying his legendarily competitive fire in the fifth inning. With two outs, a runner on first base and Toronto leading 5-1, manager John Schneider went to the mound to talk to Scherzer, who growled and chased the skipper away, struck out Randy Arozarena on a curveball in the dirt, then retired two batters in the sixth before finally getting the hook.
“I’ve been waiting for that all year, for Max to yell at me on the mound,” said Schneider afterwards. “It was awesome, I thought he was going to kill me.” Read the rest of this entry »
Home-field advantage has been a bit of a booby prize this postseason, with the home team losing all five LCS games heading into Thursday evening’s action. The Dodgers’ Game 3 starter, Tyler Glasnow, is arguably the closest thing this rotation has to a weak link. So maybe the Brewers weren’t as dead as the series standings made it seem. Win one and you’re back in it.
Unfortunately for the Brewers, and for neutrals hoping for this series to go six or seven exciting games, that wasn’t in the cards. The Dodgers put a run on the board within their first two batters of the game, and while Milwaukee tied it the next inning, Glasnow shut the door afterward. A couple singles, a walk, and a throwing error in the sixth inning were all the Dodgers needed to win the game, 3-1, and take a 3-0 lead in the series. You already know what the odds are at this point. Read the rest of this entry »
Jovanny Hernandez / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel-USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images and Bill Streicher-Imagn Images
Unhittable starting pitching has carried the Dodgers through the Wild Card and Division Series and staked them to a 2-0 lead over the Brewers in the National League Championship Series. But as Blake Snell and Yoshinobu Yamamoto have made the the biggest headlines, some of their elite hitters such as Shohei Ohtani, Freddie Freeman, and Will Smith have scuffled. Meanwhile Enrique Hernández and Teoscar Hernández (no relation) have picked up the slack, recalling their contributions during last year’s championship run; their efforts even bookended the fateful game-tying five-run rally in the World Series clincher against the Yankees. After subpar regular seasons married by injuries, both have rediscovered their groove in October.
At American Family Field on Tuesday night, the dynamic duo shone once again during the Dodgers’ 5-1 victory in Game 2. With the team trailing 1-0 in the second inning following Jackson Chourio’s leadoff homer off Yamamoto, Teoscar got ahead 3-0 against Freddy Peralta, then pounced on the next pitch thrown in the zone, a 3-2 hanging curveball, and demolished it for a towering solo home run — 105.9 mph off the bat, with a 39-degree launch angle — to left field.
I’ve got some terrible news for you. The crime rate is way down. I know that sounds like it should be good news, but when it comes to baseball, it’s just boring. Nobody’s stealing any bases during the playoffs (except for Randy Arozarena and, of course, Josh Naylor). The 34 total playoff games have seen just 26 steals on 35 total attempts. That’s 0.51 attempts per team per game, a huge drop-off from a regular season that averaged 0.91. The Blue Jays and Dodgers have combined for just two steals on two attempts. Boring.
On its own, that doesn’t seem too surprising. This is the fourth year in a row that teams have attempted fewer steals per game in the playoffs than in the regular season. The reasons behind this are easy enough to understand. First, we have a logistical hurdle. Runs are harder to come by during the playoffs. This year, we’ve seen 4.45 runs per team game during the regular season and just 4.02 during the playoffs. On-base percentage is down 11 points, which means fewer baserunners and fewer stolen base opportunities to start with. Next, we’ve got the risk aversion angle. Those baserunners are a more precious commodity at a time when the stakes are at their highest. Running into an out on the bases is a very loud unforced error, the kind of thing you get roasted for in the papers the next morning. It’s a lot harder to see how much potential value you’re leaving on the table by just staying put. I feel confident that I’ve never read an article roasting a player for not trying to steal.
SEATTLE — There’s an age-old question among pitching philosophers. Should an approach focus more on the pitcher’s strengths or the hitter’s weaknesses? In my experience, pitchers do not ask themselves this question, though. They almost always prefer to pitch to their own strengths. They might tweak their strategy if a hitter has an obvious and exploitable weakness that they feel comfortable attacking, but mostly they’d rather stick to what they do best.
But what happens when what a pitcher does best aligns perfectly with what his opponent does best? When it’s not just that he’s ignoring the hitter’s weakness, but that he’s also pitching to the hitter’s strength? Game 3 of the ALCS between the Mariners and the Blue Jays gave us a data point to consider when answering that question. Toronto walked away with a 13-4 victory in Seattle to cut the Mariners’ series lead to 2-1, and did so by sticking to its strengths in the batter’s box. Read the rest of this entry »
Junfu Han-USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images and Brad Penner-Imagn Images
I’m trying out a new format for our managerial report cards this postseason. In the past, I went through every game from every manager, whether they played 22 games en route to winning the World Series or got swept out of the wild card round. To be honest, I hated writing those brief blurbs. No one is all that interested in the manager who ran out the same lineup twice, or saw his starters get trounced and used his best relievers anyway because the series was so short. This year, I’m skipping the first round, and grading only the managers who survived until at least the best-of-five series. Today, we’ll start with the two managers who lost in the American League Divisional Series, Aaron Boone and A.J. Hinch.
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 the 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 or 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 Cam Schlittler and Michael Busch were also great this October. Forget trusting your veterans; the playoffs are about trusting your best players. Blake Snell is important 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.
I’m always looking for new analytical wrinkles in critiquing managerial decisions. I’m increasingly viewing pitching as a tradeoff between protecting your best relievers from overexposure and minimizing your starters’ weakest matchups, which means that I’m grading managers on multiple axes in every game. I think that almost no pitching decision is a no-brainer these days; there are just too many competing priorities to make anything totally obvious. That means I’m going to be less certain in my evaluation of pitching than of hitting, but I’ll try to make my confidence level clear in each case. Let’s get to it. Read the rest of this entry »
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