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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Ben Lindbergh and Sam Miller banter about whether we need middle names and what it was like not to know what players were worth before WAR and its statistical predecessors existed, then do Stat Blasts about pickoff attempts in a fan-free season, why home-field advantage has persisted without fans in the stands, and the Phillies’ blown leads, and finally conduct a quiz based on surprising Statcast sprint speeds.

Audio intro: Will Butler, "I Don’t Know What I Don’t Know"
Audio outro: Fleet Foxes, "Can I Believe You"

Link to Ben on player evaluation before WAR
Link to study on WAR and MVP voting
Link to Bill James on WAR and MVP voting
Link to Sam on how fans affect the game
Link to story on the extra-inning home-field advantage
Link to Jonathan Judge on the 2020 strike zone
Link to R.J. Anderson on Gallen’s pickoffs
Link to blown leads spreadsheet
Link to Statcast sprint speed leaderboard

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Last night, Trevor Bauer made a rather emphatic statement not only on behalf of his team, which is in the playoff hunt, but also for himself in the National League Cy Young race. Bauer pitched eight innings, striking out 12 against one walk and just a single run as the Reds moved above .500 to move into the eighth and final playoff spot heading into today’s action. Meanwhile, though it’s not yet clear if Jacob deGrom or Yu Darvish will get another outing to stake their claims, but Corbin Burnes pitches tonight against the Cardinals. Below you will find the NL WAR leaders among pitchers through last night’s contests:

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When the Padres made the August 31 trade deadline’s biggest splash by acquiring Mike Clevinger from the Indians via a nine-player blockbuster, it was with an eye towards the 29-year-old righty taking the ball in the postseason, potentially as a Game 1 starter. While the team is tied for the NL’s second-best record (34-22) and headed to the playoffs for the first time since 2006, plans for Clevinger to figure prominently have been put on hold, as he left Wednesday’s start against the Angels after one inning due to biceps tightness.

After throwing seven shutout innings against the Giants on September 13, Clevinger had previously been scheduled to start on Saturday, September 18 against the Mariners, but he was scratched due to his first reported bout of soreness in his right biceps. After a successful bullpen session on Monday, he was declared good to go against the Angels, and he got off to a strong start, breezing through the first inning on 12 pitches by sandwiching strikeouts of David Fletcher and Mike Trout — both swinging at sliders — around a groundout by Jared Walsh:

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12:04

Dan Szymborski: And we are LIVEISH

12:05

Dan Szymborski: Dan Rather @DanRather I have heard others see the world differently, but here are two things you will not find on a Rather dinner table: beans in the chili or garlic in the guacamole. 12 Sep 2020

12:05

Dan Szymborski: Over

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