If you follow baseball, you probably have a rough understanding of the way Tampa Bay builds their roster. They assemble a ton of complementary pieces, put them in the best position to succeed, and build an offense that seems like more than the sum of its parts. Just as importantly, they do it without any true superstars.

In 2018, they finished with baseball’s ninth-best offense when Tommy Pham went incandescent for the last two months of the year. The best hitter on the team who made at least 400 plate appearances was C.J. Cron, and his 123 wRC+ won’t blow anyone’s socks off. In 2019, they had the 11th-best offense led by Austin Meadows with a 142 wRC+. This year, they finished with the eighth-best offense, with Brandon Lowe the headliner. Many pieces, no truly gamebreaking talents; it’s starting to feel like the Rays way.

None of those players, however, have actually been the best hitter in Tampa Bay this year. Pham is plying his trade for the Padres, Meadows was injured and ineffective, and while Lowe is a borderline MVP candidate after a great season, he’s not who I want to talk about today. The best hitter on the top seed in the American League is — well, crap, it’s Brian O’Grady, who batted .400/.400/.600 in five plate appearances. After him, though, it’s Randy Arozarena, who hit .281/.384/.641 in a still-tiny 76 plate appearance sample for a 176 wRC+.

The Rays seem to believe the hype. In the first game of the Wild Card round, Arozarena batted third in the lineup. In the second game, with the platoon advantage against Hyun Jin Ryu 류현진, he batted second. Tampa Bay is treating Arozarena like one of the best hitters on the team. Let’s take a quick look at how this can be the case for a player who wasn’t even in the Tampa Bay system or on any Top 100 prospect lists before this year. Read the rest of this entry »

One of the things 2020’s expanded playoff format robbed us of was a real American League East throw down. The Rays earned bragging rights, winning 13 of their 15 games in late August to turn a two-game deficit into a four-and-a-half-game cushion, ultimately taking the division by an impressive seven games and whomping the Yankees by an 8-2 margin in their head-to-head matchups. But the Yankees never really acted as if their season was in serious jeopardy because in the end, it never really was. After all, the stakes for winning the division versus finishing in second place have never been lower. With the pennant race defanged, a Yankees vs. Rays postseason matchup brings real electricity where their other 2020 matchups did not. The winner will be just one series away from a trip to the Fall Classic; the loser will be sent home to make plans for 2021.

What makes this matchup fun isn’t just that the results actually matter. There’s also a real contrast between how the teams are run. The Yankees may not spend with the same unchecked aggression they did 15 years ago, but they still agree to massive contracts when the right opportunity arises; Gerrit Cole isn’t being paid in exposure. New York is a standard modern juggernaut: big payroll, big power, and big plate discipline, but with an interest in developing players from within rather than cashing every top prospect into veteran deadline help.

If the Yankees are a 21st century Goliath, no team better personifies David than the Rays. There’s no denying that Tampa Bay’s tiny payroll includes a healthy chunk of parsimony, but most observers agree that the team lacks the revenue — and the possibility of such — to realistically challenge the luxury tax threshold. Whatever you attribute the club’s low payrolls to, the Rays have to be careful and clever. And as low-spending teams go, their record matches up with that of bigger payroll clubs exceptionally well. Since they dropped the Devil from their name before the 2008 season, the Rays have won 1081 games, the fifth-most in baseball, despite playing in one of baseball’s toughest divisions.

And the contrasts don’t stop at payroll. The Yankees have the name-brand superstars, while the Rays always seem to find a multitude of average-to-above-average players out of nowhere with almost paranormal ease. Back when we thought the season would be 162 games long, ZiPS projected four Yankees hitters to be worth at least three wins; only a single Ray (Austin Meadows) was projected to eclipse that mark. But the computer also projected 17 Rays position players to put up at least one win if used in a full-time role compared to just 11 Yankees. No Tampa Bay starter was projected to equal Cole, just as no Rays reliever was expected to be as dominant as Aroldis Chapman, but ZiPS saw the Rays as having 38 better than replacement level pitchers in the organization, the most of any team in baseball. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s well-chronicled that the Twins have now lost 18 consecutive postseason games. What it isn’t is well-explained, and that’s for good reason. A streak this torturous is inexplicable. Getting swept in a short series is by no means uncommon, but having it happen repeatedly, at the worst possible time, is soul-crushingly rare.

Derek Falvey was asked about the failings when he met with the media following Wednesday’s elimination. Moreover, he was asked what can be done to reverse those fortunes in Octobers to come. Minnesota’s Chief Baseball Officer answered as best he could, but again, what’s beset his club is inexplicable.

I introduced that angle in a follow-up question near the end of Falvey’s session: Given the randomness of short series, is there truly anything that can be done to flip the postseason script? Are the Twins akin to the pre-2004 Red Sox in that they’ll only win once the Baseball Gods deem it time for them to win?

“I hear your perspective on trying to make sure we don’t overreact to some history,” responded Falvey. “We want to make sure that we assess this as objectively as we can… but I do think there is some reality that in a baseball season, over the course of two or three, or four or five games, things can go a little haywire on you — even if you feel you have a good foundation. Maybe if you played those games all over again, you might have a different result. I get that. That speaks to your question a little bit about randomness. Read the rest of this entry »

The 0-0 score in the middle of the fifth inning in Friday’s decisive Wild Card series Game 3 between the Padres and Cardinals was, technically speaking, accurate. It was true that neither team had tallied a run to that point in the contest. But the thing about scores is that they hide things, details that influence the way a fan actually feels while watching the game. In this case, the score conveyed a tie — a situation in which neither team had yet gained the upper hand. It probably would have been difficult to find a Padres fan who agreed, however. St. Louis had their ace on the mound going strong, and had yet to even warm up a second pitcher. San Diego, meanwhile, had already used up five pitchers in the game. Even without allowing a run, it felt the team was playing from behind. It had been that way ever since they lost their two best starters the final weekend of the regular season, and when they lost Game 1 of the series, and when they literally named Craig Stammen their starter in a win-or-go-home playoff game.

I’m not sure when it is that feeling went away. Maybe it was when the Padres scored their first run in the bottom of the fifth, or when they added two more in a seventh inning full of defensive miscues from St. Louis. Maybe it wasn’t until the end of the game that it finally set in that the Padres had accomplished something stunning — a 4-0 win carried out by nine bullpen pitchers that advanced the team to an NLDS standoff with the rival Los Angeles Dodgers next week. It is the most pitchers ever used in a shutout during the live-ball era, and the first playoff series win for San Diego in 22 years.

It was the second-straight day the Padres used nine pitchers, after doing so in the team’s 11-9 victory in Game 2 on Thursday. The day before that, the team had used eight pitchers. In both of those games, however, the conga line marching in from the bullpen was the result of starting pitchers who allowed the game to slip away from them early. In Game 1, Chris Paddack only made it 2.1 innings before allowing six runs on eight hits. In Game 2, Zach Davies went just two innings and allowed four runs on five hits. With Dinelson Lamet and Mike Clevinger already ruled out of the series because of injuries suffered last weekend, the Padres’ options for Game 3 were limited. It wasn’t until just a few hours before first pitch that the team announced Stammen — who last started a game in 2010, and held a 5.63 ERA in 24 innings this season — would get the ball in the first inning.

But Stammen got the first five outs of the game while allowing just a single hit, and each arm that followed simply continued to put up zeroes. Padres pitchers allowed just four hits and three walks, striking out eight and enjoying stellar defensive work from the infield behind them. Read the rest of this entry »

With the wild card round wrapped up, Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley react to the end of the Marlins-Cubs and Padres-Cardinals series and reflect on the wild card round as a whole. Then they critique a few aspects of the postseason’s national baseball broadcasts (including Alex Rodriguez’s small-ball boosterism, the scourge of live, in-game player interviews, and the portrayal of Trevor Bauer) before previewing the division series and paying tribute to the late, great Bob Gibson.

Audio intro: Dawes, "Somewhere Along the Way"
Audio outro: The Strokes, "Vision of Division"

Link to Katie Baker on A-Rod
Link to Ben on in-game interviews
Link to Meg on baseball grumps
Link to Bryan Curtis on Joe Buck
Link to Ben on foreign substances
Link to Rob Arthur on Bauer’s suspicious spin rates
Link to story about Bauer’s tweets
Link to Ben on Tatis and unwritten rules
Link to Bud Light ad
Link to other Bud Light ad
Link to FanGraphs playoff coverage
Link to Gibson obit
Link to Angell on Gibson

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Episode 890

The FanGraphs crew has made it through the Wild Card Series, and they have plenty to discuss. The American League has settled into a pair of intense rivalries, while the National League includes a juggernaut and a true underdog.

• Ben Clemens and Dan Szymborski take a closer look at the AL side of the bracket as well as some playoff ZiPS projections. Is Alejandro Kirk for real? Are the Yankees possibly underrated? And what did Ben think of attending the Oakland series in person? [1:40]
• Eric Longenhagen chats with Rachael McDaniel about the NL side of things, including some well-deserved Clayton Kershaw love. Also, how does social media affect today’s young players? And what do these Marlins have in common with the 2003 bunch? [27:32]

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There was a philosophical quandary after Miami’s 2–0 Game 2 win over Chicago: Is it really an upset loss if the higher seed never looked like the favorite? The Cubs — NL Central champs, No. 3 in the postseason field, blessed with talent — are gone. The Marlins — bottom feeders the last several years, season nearly ended by COVID before it got started, built out of spare parts and held together with string, in the postseason by virtue only of its expansion — are moving on. And after two games in an empty and chilly Wrigley Field, that result doesn’t feel like a fluke.

The numbers on Chicago’s side of things are grizzly: 18 innings played, one run scored, that coming on a single hit: Ian Happ’s solo homer off Sandy Alcantara in the fifth inning of Game 1. Since then, no runs in 13 straight innings, most of them quiet and all of them frustrating. You saw plenty of that in Game 2: After struggling to get the measure on rookie righty Sixto Sánchez and his booming fastball early on, Cubs hitters seemed to figure something out the second time through the order. In the fourth, Willson Contreras and Kyle Schwarber drew back-to-back walks to open the frame. One out later, Jason Heyward cracked a broken-bat single to right, and perhaps feeling pressure to get on the board, third base coach Will Venable sent Contreras — not a glacier like most catchers, but no one’s idea of Billy Hamilton — from second. The play was close, but a strong throw from Matt Joyce and a nice tag by Chad Wallach got him at home to end the threat and keep things scoreless. Read the rest of this entry »

During a brief respite between games, Ben Lindbergh and Sam Miller catch up on a week’s worth of wild card action, discussing the experience of being bombarded by an unprecedented amount of postseason baseball, the playoff run environment, and the state of postseason strategy, along with observations and takeaways from every wild card matchup and musings about almost every one of the 16 playoff teams.

Audio intro: The Jesus and Mary Chain, "I Can’t Find the Time for Times"
Audio outro: The Rolling Stones, "Keep Up Blues"

Link to Ben on Yankees-Cleveland and second-guessing
Link to FanGraphs playoff coverage

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The first plate appearance of Game 2 in the Wild Card Series between the Brewers and the Dodgers went like this: a high fastball from Clayton Kershaw, coming in at 92.7 mph. A slider, fouled off by Avisaíl García. Then another slider — a swing and a miss. And then another slider, the best of all of them, for the strikeout.

That first plate appearance set the tone for the rest of the night. Though the 3-0 final score may suggest a close game, in reality, it didn’t feel all that close. Kershaw utterly dominated the Brewers, who, as the broadcast frequently noted, end their season never having cleared the .500 mark. Through eight scoreless innings of work, he struck out 13, allowing just three hits and a walk. It was one of the best postseason performances of his career, and it propels the Dodgers into the NLDS.

For the first four innings of the game, Kershaw and Brewers starter Brandon Woodruff — who hit a first-inning home run off Kershaw in the NLCS two years ago — matched each other blow-for-blow. Kershaw struck out two in the top of the first; Woodruff struck out two in the bottom. Kershaw retired the Brewers in order in the top of the second; Woodruff did the same to the Dodgers in the bottom half of the inning, adding two more strikeouts. In the top of the third, Kershaw pitched around a leadoff single, retiring the next three batters; in the bottom of the third, Woodruff, too, pitched around a single, again striking out two. And in the fourth, both halves of the inning saw all three batters retired, with both pitchers recording two more strikeouts.

Everything was working for Kershaw, whose fastball averaged 91.8 mph over the course of his start. His slider, which he threw 48% of the time, was particularly devastating: It generated 32 swings on 45 pitches, with 20 of those swings being whiffs. Of his eventual 13 strikeouts, 10 were on the slider; nine of those 10 were swinging strikeouts. Woodruff, for his part, also had his pitches working for the first four innings, generating strikeouts on his changeup, slider, and, most often, his fastball, which averaged 96.9 mph. Read the rest of this entry »

Within the context of the abbreviated 2020 season, both Fernando Tatis Jr. and Manny Machado produced electrifying highlights and eye-opening numbers while helping the Padres to the National League’s second-best record. But with the team on the verge of elimination against the Cardinals in the best-of-three Wild Card Series, the two MVP candidates spent the first five innings of Thursday night’s game unable to get the big hit that would take a tattered pitching staff off the hook. And then with two swings of the bat, the pair’s fourth set of back-to-back home runs this season changed everything, erasing a four-run deficit. Additional fireworks followed — enough to summon the ghosts of Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig, even — and ultimately, the Padres outlasted the Cardinals for an 11-9 win, forcing a Game 3 to be played on Friday.

For the first five and a half innings, this one had the feel of déjà vu. Already without Mike Clevinger and Dinelson Lamet due to arm injuries suffered during the final week of the regular season, and having gotten just 2.1 innings from Chris Paddack in Game 1 as they fell into a 6-2 hole from which they never escaped, the Padres fell behind early. Sinkerballer Zach Davies simply could not get the Cardinals — who finished in a virtual tie with the Padres for the lowest swing rate in the National League (43.6%) — to play his game by swinging at pitches below the strike zone. During the regular season, nobody threw a higher percentage of such pitches:

In two innings of work totaling 55 pitches, Davies got just 19 swings. Just four were whiffs, while seven were foul balls; of the eight put into play, four were hit for exit velocities in excess of 100 mph, three of them hits in the second inning. Read the rest of this entry »