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We have a hard time making ourselves feel it when probability offers good news. Going into Saturday’s NLCS Game 6, our ZiPS postseason game-by-game odds gave the Braves a 71.4% chance of advancing to the World Series. They had largely outplayed the Dodgers. Max Muncy and Justin Turner were still sidelined, and Joe Kelly had just joined them. Max Scherzer had been scratched with arm fatigue, leaving Walker Buehler to start on short rest. Game 7 might mean a bullpen game for Los Angeles, if there were a Game 7 at all. The Dodgers were up against it; the Braves, at worst, had another shot.

That is what we knew; feeling it was another matter. After all, the Dodgers had won 18 more regular-season games than the Braves, and in a harder division. They were riding a seven-game win streak in postseason elimination games, including an 11–2 drubbing in Game 5 to stay alive. Atlanta had dealt with injuries of its own, and this series had so far followed 2020’s pattern, causing an itchy bit of worry in the back of Braves fans’ minds as they remembered going up three-games-to-one in last year’s NLCS only to have Los Angeles claw its way back in Game 5 and take the next two. Ian Anderson, the Braves’ Game 6 starter, had only managed three innings in Game 2; Atlanta won, but he’d walked three and allowed two runs, and then there were all those bad first innings to think of. What if Eddie Rosario’s bat cooled? What if Chris Taylor’s didn’t? Read the rest of this entry »

Tyler Glasnow deliverers his high-octane fastball with a standard four-seam grip. That hasn’t always been the case. Back in his Little League days, the Tampa Bay Rays right-hander relied on an extra digit when throwing a baseball.

“I used to throw my heater with three fingers on top,” explained Glasnow, who at 6-foot-8 has grown exponentially since those formative years. “One time I was throwing to one of the coaches with my three-finger grip, and he was, ‘Whoa. That’s weird. Try throwing with two fingers.’ I did, and I think the movement got a little better, and I threw it a bit harder, but I couldn’t throw it for strikes. So I stayed with that three-finger approach for a little bit — a four-seam grip with three fingers — and then as my hands got bigger, I went to two fingers.”

His curveball is another story. Glasnow told me that he first began throwing a breaker around his sophomore year of high school… or maybe it was prior to that? He’s not entirely sure. When I suggested that age-12 isn’t uncommon, the So. Cal native said that may well have been the case. Read the rest of this entry »

The Astros are heading to their third World Series in the last five years, besting the Red Sox, 5–0, on Friday night to finish the ALCS in six games. The Red Sox had the pitcher they wanted on the mound in Nathan Eovaldi, but the offense they needed never materialized as Houston’s starter, Luis Garcia, pitched 5 2/3 masterful innings, striking out seven against just a single walk and one lonely hit.

As one of the first front offices to go all-in on modern analytics, Houston has long been an organization that takes glee in upending conventional wisdom. Despite a rotation torn apart long-term by veteran departures and short-term with an injury to Lance McCullers Jr. (and what possibly looked like one to Garcia), the Astros stymied Boston’s lineup. Pitching woes, schmitching woes; despite the very reasonable worries about the rotation, they limited the dangerous Red Sox offense to three runs over the final three games.

Everyone likes tales of comebacks or redemption, and Garcia, one of the AL Rookie of the Year favorites, provided a good one. He got knocked out in the third inning of his first start this postseason, giving up five runs against the White Sox in Houston’s lone ALDS loss. The follow-up performance didn’t go any better: the Red Sox scored five runs off of him before he was removed with a knee strain in the second inning.

Some teams would have been a little uneasy about starting Garcia in Game 6, but one of the reasons the Astros are in position to win another World Series championship is that they put a lot of faith in the young pitching talent that remained after most of their big-name starting pitching was gone. As with the Rays and their never-ending supply of nameless relievers who become all-world or the White Sox going with Carlos Rodón in Game 4 of the ALDS, there’s a lot of appeal in sticking with the people that got you here. There would have been second-guessing and what-ifs about not acquiring a J.A. Happ type a few months ago if Garcia had again struggled. But he didn’t, and while this wasn’t John Smoltz facing off against Jack Morris in the World Series, he dominated Boston’s offense in his 5 2/3 one-hit innings.

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Meg Rowley and guest co-host Ben Clemens discuss the Astros’ pitching woes, the role of starters in the postseason, Dave Roberts’ decision to have Brusdar Graterol hit in Game 5 of the NLCS, Yordan Alvarez, how a 3-2 series deficit feels for fans of the team with the upper hand, and Ben’s look at Ian Anderson‘s first-inning struggles. Then they consider Other Ben and Rob Arthur’s assessment of MLB’s rule experiments in the Atlantic and minor leagues, before answering listener emails on an unorthodox baserunning strategy, ump shows, how aliens might contextualize Mike Trout’s recent season stats, and whether we should re-think the ground rule double. Read the rest of this entry »

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If the Houston Astros win tonight, they’ll go to the World Series. That’s in line with what they expected to be doing before the season — this is the fifth straight year the Astros have played in the ALCS, and they’ve been to the World Series in two of those four years. But if they make it three out of five this year, they’ll do so despite pitching injuries that have left the team rebuilding their rotation on the fly, much as they’ve been doing since the start of the year.

Yesterday, Dusty Baker intimated that Lance McCullers Jr. is out for the remainder of the postseason. Given that he was left off the ALCS roster, that’s hardly a surprise, but it does mean that the Astros need to plan for how their rotation will work without him going forward.

With their presumptive ace gone, the top of the rotation now starts with Framber Valdez. I’d argue that it might have started with him in any case, but with McCullers out, he’s clearly the best option. That lines him up to start a World Series opener if they make it that far, but does make him mostly unavailable before then. Easy enough, here’s the rotation through one spot:

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After a one-year hiatus due to the oddity and non-celebratory feeling of a season truncated by a raging pandemic, we’re bringing back the Elegy series in a streamlined format for a 2021 wrapup. Think of this as a quick winter preview for each team, discussing the questions that faced each team ahead of the year, how they were answered, and what’s next. Do you like or hate the new format? Let me know in the comments below!

Chicago White Sox (93–69)

The Big Question
Did the White Sox miss out by not acquiring another bat? I wouldn’t say they had a lackadaisical offseason, considering they made two massive upgrades to their pitching staff in Lance Lynn and Liam Hendriks. But they didn’t show a similar vigor in adding to the offense. Chicago didn’t struggle to score in 2020, finishing second in the AL in runs scored, but right field and designated hitter were notorious weak spots. And while there was talk about swiping Nelson Cruz out from under the Twins’ noses, the White Sox settled for signing wayward son Adam Eaton to a one-year deal and counting on top prospect Andrew Vaughn to be ready for the majors. Both were considerable risks: Eaton was coming off the worst season of his career, and Vaughn had yet to play above A-ball, where a lot of his value came from walks.

How It Went
That part of the plan didn’t quite work out. Vaughn did a respectable job picking up the outfield on the fly and even briefly cosplayed as a second baseman and a third baseman. But while he showed a solid eye at the plate, as in A-ball, not a lot of power came out of it; he struggled to a .613 OPS in the second half, and righties dominated him with breaking stuff all season. In the end, Vaughn would have been better served at Triple-A, which already would have been a big leap; the White Sox didn’t get anything from him they couldn’t have gotten from any other random fourth outfielder on a one-year deal. Eaton, meanwhile, was terrible, saw his playing time diminish, and was released midseason.

In the end, though, it didn’t actually matter! Neither Cleveland nor Minnesota proved up to the task of contention, and the White Sox were blessed with Yermín Mercedes having the best two months of his life in April and May, giving the team a surprise reinforcement at a time when the division was still in doubt. Even injuries to Eloy Jiménez and Luis Robert couldn’t completely stop the team in its tracks. By the time Chicago acquired Craig Kimbrel at the deadline, the AL Central race was long over for all intents and purposes. Read the rest of this entry »

Episode 945

On this episode, we welcome back a major leaguer, dork out about prospects and fantasy baseball, and dive into weird October starting pitcher usage.

• To kick things off, David Laurila is joined by Andrew Miller, who last appeared in episode 891. They discuss postseason start times, relievers pacing themselves vs. throwing max effort, and how the new CBA could potentially address robot umpires. Miller also shares what it has been like to play with some of the best managers and coaches of this generation during his 16-year major league career. [2:59]
• After that, Eric Longenhagen and Paul Sporer catch up about First Pitch Arizona, which they both recently attended. The duo discuss the intersection of the prospect and fantasy baseball communities, and go over some of the players who are currently popular with both. All eyes might be on Adley Rutschman, but Paul is starting a Spencer Torkelson fan club and he can’t wait to tell you about it. [26:08]
• Finally, Ben Clemens and Jay Jaffe discuss the incredible shrinking postseason starter. Pitcher usage has been especially strange this October and the pair offer a number of reasons why, including (and most notably) the uptick in pitcher workloads after the shortened 2020 season. Ben and Jay also talk about using starters on their throw days and the concerns they have for overworked pitchers going forward. [58:34]

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