Episode 944

This week on FanGraphs Audio, we go over the first round of the playoffs before looking ahead to both Championship Series.

• To begin the program, David Laurila welcomes Bill Koch of The Providence Journal to talk about Boston’s ALDS win over the Rays. Not many expected the team’s season to go this way, but the return of Chris Sale and a continually impressive Garrett Whitlock have the Fenway faithful loud and ready for more October baseball. David and Bill talk about that weird off-the-wall play in Game 4, the effects of baseball’s competitive balance on October, and how the Red Sox will match up against a perennially competitive Houston club in the ALCS. [2:23]
• After that, Ben Clemens and Dan Szymborski get together to banter about the other playoff matchups. We’ve seen some intense rivalries play out in exciting ways so far, while other so-called feuds seem weirdly one-sided or manufactured. Ben and Dan discuss the Brewers’ offensive woes (and who their main rival is), the news of Lance McCullers Jr.’s questionable availability for the ALCS, Dan being ejected as a mouthy little-leaguer, and more. [29:23]

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A pizza stain on the new Armani. A chocolate chip cookie, fresh out of the oven, adorned with nine chips and one cat droplet. The middle five wishes of Elliot Richards. Game 5 of the 2021 NLDS.

The Dodgers won 2-1 in as tense and dramatic a contest as we’ve seen all year, one that ended with an inexplicable call from first base umpire Gabe Morales on Wilmer Flores’ check swing. For Los Angeles, it’s a fifth trip to the NLCS in six seasons, a triumph only made sweeter by the circumstances. In vanquishing their rivals, the Dodgers get the last laugh in a brilliantly played season series. Tonight’s game is vindication for Dave Roberts and his lineup choices, redemption for Cody Bellinger, and another line on Hall of Famer Max Scherzer’s remarkable resume. Fans of all stripes were treated to an exquisite contest in nearly every respect.

But like most neutrals, that last pitch is stuck in my craw. With two outs, Kris Bryant on first, and Flores at the plate, Scherzer fired a 1-2 slider. Flores started his swing but appeared to check it well in advance of the imaginary and arbitrary breaking point at which a take (usually!) becomes a swinging strike:

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Meg Rowley is joined by guest co-host Mike Petriello of MLB.com. They discuss Mike’s role in the booth as a part of ESPN’s Statcast broadcasts, how what is affectionately referred to as the Nerdcast got started, how Mike prepares for games, how he balances being analytics-heavy while still appealing to a broad audience, how the Nerdcast has evolved along with Statcast, what makes for a fun booth, how he works with Jason Benetti and Eduardo Perez, and what might come next for the Nerdcast as more traditional broadcasts become more statistically savvy. Then they briefly contemplate the role of the manager in light of the news of Mike Shildt’s firing in St. Louis before turning their attention (31:19) to the Dodgers’ decision to start Corey Knebel as an opener for Game 5 of the NLDS, how the Giants might counter, what they like about Logan Webb, and what each of these teams needs to do to advance to the NLCS. Read the rest of this entry »

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Tonight, there’s only one game in town, as the Giants face the Dodgers in a winner-take-all, NLDS Game 5 slugfest in San Francisco. It’s been billed as a matchup between two borderline Cy Young candidates: Logan Webb, who humbled the Los Angeles lineup in the first game of the series, and Julio Urías, who started Game 2 for the Dodgers after a superlative 2021 season. Only, nope:

Corey Knebel will start Game 5 tonight.

— Los Angeles Dodgers (@Dodgers) October 14, 2021

This isn’t going to be a lengthy discussion of whether openers make sense. Teams clearly like the tactic as a way to fill innings, but almost never in front of a pitcher as good as Urías. I’m interested in what the Giants will do to counter it, and how that counter will determine Urías’s matchups.

When he took the mound last Saturday, the Giants set up like so:

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This postseason, I’m trying out a new feature: managerial report cards. After each postseason round, I’ll look at the losing managers and assess their performance when it comes to in-game management. Pinch hit for your MVP candidate with a pitcher? Not that it would ever happen, but you’d get an F for that. Bring in your best pitcher in a big spot, only to have him give up a three-run homer? That’s still an A, results notwithstanding.

These grades don’t cover everything that a manager does. Deploying your best players in the biggest spots and hiding their weaknesses where possible is a big part of a manager’s role, but it’s definitely not the only part. As an example, Kevin Cash and the entire Rays staff deserve a permanent A for their work in getting their pitchers and hitters ready for flexible roles all season long. Likewise, Dave Roberts and the Dodgers coaching staff benched a former MVP and seem to have kept the clubhouse roughly in order, always a tough task. None of that will be reflected in these rankings, but it’s absolutely important managerial work — it’s simply work I don’t have much insight into.

Kevin Cash, Tampa Bay Rays

Lineups/Pinch Hitting: C
Cash mostly used his lineups creatively, matching his players’ strengths with the opposing pitcher’s. The Red Sox went heavily to lefties in this series — Eduardo Rodriguez started two games and Chris Sale one. That meant a heaping helping of Jordan Luplow, Manuel Margot, and Yandy Díaz, three players on the team for their ability to hit left-handed pitching. When Nathan Eovaldi started Game 3, all three of those hitters were out of the lineup, replaced by Austin Meadows, Ji-Man Choi, and Joey Wendle. Read the rest of this entry »

Dillon Tate’s fastballs were primarily sinkers this season. Per Statcast, the 27-year-old Baltimore Orioles reliever threw 615 of them in total, versus just 16 four-seamers. Delivered with a one-seam grip at an average velocity of 95.5 mph, and with a spin rate that ranked in the third percentile, the offering has evolved into Tate’s signature pitch. Buoyed by its increased effectiveness, the right-hander appeared in a career-high 62 games, logging a 4.39 ERA and an almost-identical 4.40 FIP.

Tate discussed the evolution of his fastball(s) when the Orioles played at Fenway Park in mid-September.

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Dillon Tate: “I’d always thrown a four-seam, but the evolution of my fastball changed throughout the years. When I was in high school, I would grip a standard four-seam, like so. But the way I was grabbing it… when you grab it with the horseshoe facing in — it’s making a “C” — and you throw it, the Magnus effect takes over; it will start to bring the ball down, and more so in to a right-handed hitter. When you flip it over — make it a backwards “C” — it fights gravity a little bit more, so will stay truer. I learned that in 2017 from one of my rehab coaches with the Yankees, Greg Pavlick.

“So, I’d been grabbing it [with the horseshoe facing in], and then with the Yankees switched over. I had a little bit of success, but then towards the middle-end of 2018, my fastball was getting hit pretty hard. That’s when I started switching over to a sinker, to a one-seam fastball. On a traditional two-seam fastball, a lot of guys will split the seams. I found comfort in going across the seam, and throwing my fastball with [the pointer finger] on one seam. I started to see my groundball rate go up. It’s turned out to be pretty good movement profile-wise — it dances more than my four-seam fastball did — so it’s been a better option for me. Read the rest of this entry »

Of all the major sports, I would argue that none rely on their history and its place in the cultural milieu more than baseball. Every big moment in baseball seems to be steeped in comparable historical feats accomplished by some of the game’s most famous protagonists, from Ruth to Mantle to Maddux. In one sense, that’s a positive; even if there are more strikeouts and home runs than there were 100 years ago, someone from 1921 could arrive by time machine and still follow what is fundamentally a very similar game. But on the flip side, someone like Mike Trout can’t simply be recognized as being the first Mike Trout but as the next version of Mays or Mantle or Speaker. We joke about broadcasters waxing nostalgic about the aura and mystique of the New York Yankees, but a player on the Yankees can’t help but be endlessly compared to the heroes of yore, and mortals are usually found wanting in those comparisons.

Every team in the playoffs has something to prove, but Boston Red Sox and Houston Astros would both like to be victors who write the history books.

The Red Sox spent most of the 20th century as the Goofus to New York’s Gallant. The Yankees were expected to win World Series after World Series while the less-fortunate son was the habitual loser, constantly pulling defeat from the jaws of victory because of a curse caused by a team owner who wanted to produce a play, My Lady Friends in 1919. But the 2000s have swung things the Sox way, with Boston not just breaking its long championship-less streak but winning four championship trophies this century, the most in baseball. Yet to a large extent, the Yankees still retain the position of the big dog. It even felt a bit like that at the trade deadline, when the Yankees got the headlines for acquiring Joey Gallo and Anthony Rizzo while Kyle Schwarber was seen as a Boston consolation prize. But Schwarber played better than either Gallo or Rizzo, and unlike them is still playing in 2021. Read the rest of this entry »