Episode 889

The latest episode of FanGraphs Audio is here in time to preview the 16-team playoff bracket. The Astros continue to receive a closer look as they enter the playoffs (they’re far from the favorites this time around), while the staff prepares for predictions — as well as some impressive callbacks.

• Dan Szymborski and Jay Jaffe continue their Houston talk from last week, but this time, they set their sights on Jose Altuve. The 2017 AL MVP has not been at his best this season, and it could mean troubling things for his baseball future. [1:53]
• Eric Longenhagen chats with Jason Martinez, creator of the invaluable RosterResource, about a number of players who were off the radar before this season who are now mainstays for their clubs. Finally, the pair take a shot at predicting the results of the eight Wild Card Series. While picking playoff winners is a often a fruitless endeavor, Jason will remind you that he aced it last year. [27:32]

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The Chicago White Sox very nearly pulled off the shock of baseball’s dramatic final day of the regular season on Sunday. They entered the afternoon trailing the Minnesota Twins by a single game in the American League Central, but could still steal the division crown with a victory and a Twins loss. That bit of intrigue quickly felt moot when the Cubs stormed ahead 6-0 in the second inning and took a 10-1 lead into the bottom of the eighth inning, but with Minnesota in the midst of a tight battle with Cincinnati, the White Sox didn’t quit. They scored seven runs over the final two innings and brought the tying run to the plate in the bottom of the ninth in the form of outfielder Nomar Mazara, who had already collected two hits.

Just as suddenly as Chicago’s rally came together, however, it came to an end. An Andrew Chafin fastball on a 2-2 count finished close enough to Mazara’s knees for the home plate umpire to rule it strike three, putting an end to the hopes of a division title and early home field advantage for the White Sox. Don’t feel too badly for them, though — they still have postseason berth, their first since 2008 and just their second since winning the World Series in 2005. They’ll enter the postseason as the No. 7 seed, meaning they will travel to Oakland and take on the No. 2-seed Athletics in a best-of-three Wild Card series beginning on Tuesday.

The last 11 years of playoff-less baseball on the south side of Chicago haven’t all been lost causes. The 2010 team won 88 games, but missed the postseason because the New York Yankees got the then-lone Wild Card spot with 95 wins. In 2012, the White Sox won 85 games, but again missed the playoffs because there were seven AL teams that won at least 88. The following year, the White Sox slipped to 63-99, and haven’t won more than 78 in any season since. Read the rest of this entry »

Baseball’s playoff format has always thumbed its nose at analysis. Five games in a divisional series, five piddling games, to determine which team is more worthy of a championship? Those teams might be separated by 20 games in the standings, and still, three hot starts by so-so pitchers could send either squad home.

This year, that arbitrary nature is in overdrive. The Blue Jays and Rays will play at most three games to settle who moves on and who goes home. Blink, and the Rays could be a game away from elimination despite winning eight more games in the regular season, the equivalent of a 22-game gap in a 162-game season.

Don’t mistake the fact that three games feels short, however, for some statement that this series is a toss-up, a 50/50 proposition. The Rays are favored, and they should be! They’re better, and while better might not mean as much over three games as it does over 60, it’s not meaningless. Tampa Bay is a full-blown juggernaut, while Toronto is an exciting team that still has more work to do to build a year-in, year-out contender.

Statements that the playoffs favor offense or defense are short-sighted. The playoffs favor outscoring your opponents by any available means. The Rays aren’t favored in this series specifically because their pitching is better — but make no mistake, their pitching is better. In fact, they’ll inarguably have the advantage in all three potential games of this series, after accounting for starters and the bullpen. Read the rest of this entry »

Over the past two days, the playoff picture has begun to come into full focus. The Marlins, Reds, and Astros all clinched playoff berths on Friday night — the last of those not with a victory of their own but one by the Dodgers, of all teams — while the Rockies and Angels were eliminated. On Saturday, the Mets bit the dust as well. Thus as we head into the abbreviated season’s final day, the eight AL teams have been decided, albeit not all of the seedings, while 10 NL teams remain alive.

In the NL, the top four seeds have been secured: the Dodgers, Braves, Cubs (who clinched the NL Central on Saturday night), and Padres will be seeds 1-4 in that order. Still at stake are the middles of the NL East and Central standings:

In the NL Central, with the Brewers splitting Friday’s doubleheader with the Cardinals and then winning on Saturday as well while the Reds lost, the three teams enter Sunday separated by a game, with St. Louis hosting Milwaukee and Cincinnati at Minnesota on Sunday. Apparently, I missed a memo regarding the potential make-up doubleheader involving the Cardinals and Tigers; they would play one or two games in Detroit on Monday only if it they have the potential to give the Cardinals home-field advantage (no longer the case) or determine whether they’re in or out; if it’s seeding in the 5-8 range, they’ll be judged on winning percentage. Read the rest of this entry »

The San Diego Padres are arguably baseball’s most-exciting young team. They’re unquestionably also very good. Heading into the final day of the regular season, the A.J. Preller-built squad boasts the second-best record in the senior circuit.

How do the 2020 Padres compare to the 2013 Tampa Bay Rays and the 2016 Texas Rangers? Given their respective relationships with those earlier playoff clubs, I asked a San Diego slugger, and the team’s manager, for their perspectives.

“I don’t think there are a ton of similarities, to be honest with you,” expressed Wil Myers, who played for the 92-win Rays in 2013. “Talent-wise, I would say that this team is definitely better than that team, especially from an offensive standpoint. The pitching for the Rays was obviously really good — David Price was a Cy Young guy — but we have Dinelson Lamet, who is a Cy Young guy. We have pitchers from top to bottom. So if you compare the 2013 Rays to the 2020 Padres, I believe from a pitching standpoint it’s pretty even, but from an offensive standpoint this team is much different, and more dynamic, than that team.” Read the rest of this entry »

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about late-season playoff uncertainty, whether they’re happy with how the playoff field has turned out, the Cubs’ strange season, the surprising number of top prospects who’ve made their MLB debuts in 2020, and the percentage of promoted prospects who’ve skipped the upper levels of the minors. Then (20:47) they talk to free agent left-handed pitcher David Speer about spending six seasons in Cleveland’s system, witnessing the team turn into a pitcher development powerhouse, the organization’s individualized plans for pitchers, learning about and being receptive to advanced stats and technology, nature vs. nurture, playing with many members of Cleveland’s current staff, reaching Triple-A, getting released and job-hunting in 2020, the reduction of the draft and contraction of the minors, minor league pay, and preserving player dev advantages.

Audio intro: Jim James, "Out of Time"
Audio interstitial: Yo La Tengo, "Periodically Double or Triple"
Audio outro: The Roches, "Losing Our Job"

Link to Jay Jaffe on the playoff picture
Link to Dan Szymborski on the Cubs’ offense
Link to Ben on 2020 prospect promotions
Link to Lucas Apostoleris on Crochet’s stuff
Link to Travis Sawchik on Cleveland’s homegrown rotation
Link to Zack Meisel on Cleveland’s pitching development
Link to David’s Twitter account
Link to the rebooted FanGraphs Audio

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You know roughly what a good batter’s stat line looks like. Here’s Juan Soto’s league-leading 2020, for example: .352/.486/.703 with 20.2% walks and 14.8% strikeouts. In 2019, Mike Trout hit .291/.438/.645 with 18.3% walks and 20% strikeouts. These make sense as “good” in my head, even if I can’t calculate how many runs they were worth without looking it up. Salvador Perez has a 177 wRC+ in 140 plate appearances this year, one of the hottest streaks of his career, and he’s batting an unrecognizable .356/.371/.667. Huh?

Oh yeah — Perez is also walking 2.1% of the time this year while striking out in 20% of his trips to the plate. He has 10 homers and three (3) walks. He’s swinging at pitches outside of the strike zone 46% of the time, the fourth-highest rate in the majors. This is the plate discipline you’d expect from a light-hitting catcher, not from a guy who would have the third-highest wRC+ in baseball this year if he had enough playing time to qualify. We’re going to need an explanation here.

One look at Perez’s Swing/Take profile (courtesy of Baseball Savant) will get your regression senses tingling:

Perez swings at 70 percent of the pitches he sees in the shadow zone, the edges of the plate and the area just outside. Only five batters in the league have swung at more at pitches in that zone. He swings at 21% of pitches in the waste zone, the highest rate in baseball (league average is 5.5%). There are certainly productive hitters who swing a lot, but they usually do it by piling up value in the heart of the plate and living with the downsides. Perez creates more runs by swinging at borderline strikes and balls than he does by swinging at pitches down the pipe.
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As we head into the final weekend of the abbreviated 2020 season, we still have only limited clarity about what the expanded postseason — which starts on Tuesday, September 29 — will look like. Eleven teams have clinched playoff berths, seven in the AL and four in the NL. Five have clinched home-field advantage for the Wild Card Series, and four have clinched division titles, but that still leaves 10 teams vying for the five remaining spots, with the lower half of the NL pool particularly murky. We won’t get any tiebreaker games, and so it might feel as though Team Entropy is just going through the motions, but as I’ve already noted, there’s still enough chaos involved to cause headaches for anybody trying to figure out the matchups from day to day, and there’s a significant possibility that teams will be playing meaningful games even into Monday (more on which below). In that sense, this silly playoff tournament has already started.

Once more, with feeling, here’s how the system works:

• The division winners be seeded 1-3 within their respective leagues based on their won-loss records, the second place teams 4-6, and then the next two teams with the best records 7-8. For the best-of-three Wild Card Series, they’ll be matched up in the familiar 1-8, 2-7, 3-6 and 4-5 pairings, with the lower seed hosting all three games.
• Within divisions, ties will first be broken on the basis of head-to-head records. Since teams haven’t played outside their divisions except against their interleague geographic counterparts, this is of use only for determining first, second, and third place within the division. If three teams in a division end up tied, combined head-to-head records against the other two teams will be used.
• If head-to-head records are tied or not applicable, the next tiebreaker is intradivision record.
• If teams have the same intradivision records, the next tiebreaker is record in the final 20 division games. If that doesn’t break the tie, then record over the final 21 games is used, and then onto final 22, 23, 24, and so forth until the tie is broken.

If it has any bearing upon seeding in the NL, commissioner Rob Manfred may mandate the Cardinals — who have just 58 games scheduled through Sunday due to all of their COVID-19 outbreak-related postponements — and Tigers may be ordered to play a doubleheader on Monday, September 28 to get to 60 games.

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Episode 888

FanGraphs Audio returns just in time for the last weekend of the 2020 season. With a wild playoff schedule looming, the FanGraphs crew discusses topics including young arms that could help in a deep postseason run, the fate of Justin Verlander, and of course, the future of the podcast.

• Meg Rowley leads off with a message to our listeners. [1:22]
• Ben Clemens and Eric Longenhagen talk about reliever usage and take a long look at prospects around the league who could make an impact in the playoffs, with a focus on some exciting arms that could come out of the bullpen. [4:25]
• Finally, Dan Szymborski and Jay Jaffe discuss Verlander and his impressive career, his Hall of Fame outlook and place in history, and what projections can tell us about injuries and legacies. As Jaffe has written, while the ace has reached some remarkable milestones, his surgery means question marks for his future — and the Astros. [35:52]

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