With just over a week to go in the regular season, Justin Verlander and Gerrit Cole are running neck and neck as favorites for the American League Cy Young award. Verlander leads the league in innings (212) and ERA (2.50). Cole has the lead in strikeouts with 302 with Verlander 19 behind. Even after accounting for Verlander’s 34 homers, his 3.28 FIP is still one of the best marks in the league. On Cole’s side are the strikeouts, a league-leading 2.78 FIP and a 6.7 WAR half a win clear of Verlander. Several other pitchers, like Charlie Morton and Lance Lynn, boast strong resumes, and with five slots on voters’ ballots, many pitchers will receive down-ballot consideration worthy of discussion.

While awards voting is a mostly objective process, when trying to differentiate between a group of very good pitchers, personal preferences are likely to play into the selections. When voters rely on particular stats, be it FIP, ERA, or some other metric, they are making decisions about the importance of defense, park, opponent, and how much talent a big league pitcher is expected to exhibit when it comes to contact quality. Before we get to all of those issues, let’s identify the candidates. There’s a fairly clear top seven among AL starting pitchers (Liam Hendriks might deserve some consideration as well) with Eduardo Rodriguez also included due to his rank based on Baseball-Reference’s WAR.

Here are the eight pitchers under consideration, with some traditional and more advanced statistics:

A look above shows Gerrit Cole leading in the more advanced statistics, with Verlander gaining the nod from traditional metrics, and Lance Lynn and Charlie Morton sort of splitting the difference between the two Astros. Shane Bieber and Lucas Giolito are a bit behind, with Giolito unable to add anything to his file after being shut down for the season. Mike Minor’s case is made by his low ERA combined with his difficult park, as his strikeouts and walks lag behind the other candidates. Eduardo Rodriguez is the poor man’s version of Minor.

If we looked at FanGraphs WAR, we’d see Cole as the leader due to his incredible strikeout rate and ability to limit homers, at least somewhat. Though he has a 20-inning deficit compared to Verlander, the strikeouts and homers make enough of a difference for Cole to take the day. Verlander and Lynn are in a dead heat when it comes to WAR, with the huge difference in home runs balancing Verlander’s lead in strikeouts and walks and Lynn’s more difficult park in which to keep balls in the field of play. Comparing Lynn to Morton, we see Morton with the homer advantage, but the innings deficit, combined with Tampa Bay being a hard park to homer in, gives Lynn the edge. Read the rest of this entry »

For the second straight year, the NL Central crown is coming right down to the wire. I won’t belabor the details — Jay Jaffe has you covered with his Team Entropy series. I’m interested in a slightly different angle. There’s one outstanding feature of the current year’s setup — two of the contenders, the Cardinals and Cubs, happen to play each other in seven of their last 10 games.

That seems like an ideal setup for the trailing team — if you take care of business and win your games, you’ll win the league. None of this hoping the other team loses nonsense — emerge victorious, and you guarantee them a loss.

There’s a problem, though — the Cubs have a tenuous hold on the second Wild Card spot, and the Cardinals are pretty good. Perform poorly, as is entirely possible when seven of your last 10 games are against a good team, and you might miss the playoffs altogether.

That’s the schedule as it exists. What this article presupposes is, what if the schedule could play out a different way? I built a lightweight version of our playoff odds model using Depth Charts projections and starter and home field adjustments, using the same rules as my earlier article on Dodgers playoff scenarios. First, let me show you my model’s view of the 2019 NL playoff race, as it varies ever so slightly from the official FanGraphs odds:

With that out of the way, let’s have some fun! Let’s mess with reality and change some odds. Read the rest of this entry »

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about the return of Luis Severino and the Yankees’ prospective playoff roster, how teams will use their pitchers in the playoffs, a Sonny Gray fun fact that sort of checks out, Yu Darvish’s strikeout spree, and an extremely long September game, discuss the arrest of Felipe Vázquez, and answer listener emails about Mookie Betts and Mike Trout, when today’s baseball will start to seem dated, how long it takes bad teams to restore their reputations, and the audacity of promising to hit home runs.

Audio intro: Gregory Alan Isakov, "San Luis"
Audio outro: Sturgill Simpson, "The Promise"

Link to Jay Jaffe on Severino’s return
Link to Aaron Boone on the Yankees’ playoff pitching plans
Link to Sonny Gray story
Link to Darvish story
Link to Ben on the playoffs as a vision of the future
Link to Yaz home runs GIF
Link to Ben on MLB’s quality of play
Link to Seinfeld clip
Link to post on promised home runs
Link to order The MVP Machine

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Last year, Josh Hader headlined an excellent relief corps in Milwaukee, helping the Brewers win their division and make the postseason for the first time since 2011. While Hader drew all the headlines with his ridiculous 46.7% strikeout rate, their bullpen was incredibly deep, making up for a lackluster starting rotation. Corey Knebel, Jeremy Jeffress, and Joakim Soria all excelled in high-leverage situations, and Corbin Burnes and Brandon Woodruff gave them plenty of length to bridge the gap from the starter to the back end of the ‘pen.

Fast forward one year and Hader is the lone reliever left from that group. Soria left via free agency, Knebel underwent Tommy John surgery in early April, and Woodruff has been a full-time starter this season. Jeffress and Burnes have been totally ineffective, with the former dealing with a shoulder issue and eventually getting released in August and the latter demoted after getting rocked as a starter to start the year. Hader, for his part, is still striking out nearly half the batters he’s facing, but he’s developed a bit of a home run problem, pushing his FIP up to 3.07 this season.

Collectively, the Brewers relievers have posted a park- and league-adjusted FIP 3% better than league average, 12th in the majors, but a far cry from their fourth-ranked (87 FIP-) bullpen from a year ago. Outside of Hader, they’ve struggled to find effective replacements for the relievers they lost from last year’s crew. Freddy Peralta has plenty of talent but his lack of control has really held him back. It was no surprise to see the Brewers attached to plenty of trade rumors in July as they looked for relief reinforcements from outside the organization. They ended up acquiring two relievers before the trade deadline, and one of them has been absolutely dominant since moving to Milwaukee. Read the rest of this entry »

If the batting title race is the one you’re paying attention to in the National League over the next couple of weeks, you’re probably cheating yourself. The NL Central division race and wild card races are both still compelling, and Anthony Rendon has turned the MVP conversation into a legitimate three-man competition, emerging as a worthy challenger to Cody Bellinger while Christian Yelich’s season has prematurely ended. Additionally, the idea of crowning someone “batting champion” for finishing first in just one offensive category is a little bit silly. But if you are zeroing in on this sort of thing in September, chances are you’ve gotten a glimpse of something the average baseball fan very likely hasn’t: that Pittsburgh Pirates shortstop Kevin Newman has absolutely caught fire over this final stretch.

Newman, a 25-year-old rookie, has spent the last three weeks doing nothing but terrorize opponents. In his last 90 plate appearances, he’s hitting .420/.478/.654 with six doubles, two triples, and three homers. His 196 wRC+ in that time trails only Eugenio Suarez, Rendon, and Ketel Marte in the National League, and it’s brought his season batting line up to .317/.363/.451 and his season WAR to 2.4. He’s now sixth in the NL in batting average, 15 points behind league-leader Rendon. Is that gap surmountable with just 11 games left to play in the Pirates’ season? Almost certainly not. But it’s still gives us a good excuse to talk about Newman’s quietly productive year.

Newman made his MLB debut in 2018 but did not produce encouraging results. He hit .209/.247/.231 over 97 plate appearances, good (?) for a wRC+ of just 28. Over the last offseason, Eric and Kiley ranked him just the 13th-best prospect in the Pirates system — partially because of his age (he ranked as highly as fifth just two years before), partially because of his lackluster debut, and partially because he just wasn’t seen as having that high of a ceiling. He had good contact rates and was serviceable in the field, but he had no power to speak of and didn’t have any other outstanding tools to make up for that. Read the rest of this entry »

NEW YORK — On Tuesday night, in the Yankees’ 152nd game of the season, staff ace Luis Severino finally made his 2019 debut. The 25-year-old righty, who after back-to-back All-Star seasons had been laid up by shoulder woes since spring training, spun four scoreless innings in an 8-0 rout of the Angels. His fastball sizzled, topping out at 98.8 mph and sitting 96-97, and his tantalizing performance fuels hopes that he can make a substantial postseason contribution to a 99-win team whose rotation has been its weakest link.

“That’s Sevy out there,” gushed catcher Austin Romine afterwards. “We need Sevy where we’re going. He’s pitched in big games for us and we look forward to him pitching in more big games for us.”

Romine could be forgiven for forgetting the quality of Severino’s last big game (six runs in three innings in Game 3 of last year’s AL Division Series against the Red Sox) and focusing on the fact that the Yankees simply don’t have any other starter of Severino’s caliber. In both 2017 and ’18, the young righty threw least 190 innings, notching at least 220 strikeouts and 5.0 WAR, and receiving down-ballot Cy Young consideration. His 11.0 WAR in that span trailed only Max Scherzer, Chris Sale, Jacob deGrom, and Corey Kluber, a group that accounted for three of the four Cy Youngs awarded.

Tuesday night qualified as a big game only in the grand scheme of things, as relatively little was at stake in the standings. The Yankees began the night with a nine-game AL East lead over the Rays, and a magic number of three to clinch, though in the battle for the AL’s top postseason seed, they were also tied with the Astros at 98-53. The Angels (68-83) have not only clinched a losing season, but their lineup has been defanged, as Mike Trout, Shohei Ohtani, and Justin Upton have recently been shut down due to season-ending injuries, while Tommy La Stella hasn’t played since July 2.

Read the rest of this entry »

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On September 15, Jason Vargas threw a pitch that ended the Phillies season. Maybe not mathematically, but spiritually, the Phillies’ 2019 campaign sailed over the fence with the grand slam Vargas served Christian Vázquez of the Red Sox in the top of the third. It was the ninth start of Vargas’ Philadelphia career, and the ninth straight game he didn’t win.

The Phillies are the only team to have a winning record for the entire season, but after their loss on September 15, their playoff odds sat below 1%. They’ve managed to maintain an 8-8 record against a superior Braves team, yet can’t stop getting their clocks cleaned by the Marlins, against whom they’re 7-9. On a team defined by relentless mediocrity, Jason Vargas’ lack of a win is a notable statistical spike. But you will be unsurprised to learn that in Philadelphia, it is not without precedent.

We must travel back to 1992 to find it, a(nother) period of disgruntled upheaval in the city. Von Hayes never had as good a time in Philadelphia as he did leaving it. When word came down that the once celebrated outfielder had been traded to the Angels in 1991, Hayes couldn’t be reached for comment by the Inquirer, but they surmised the situation as best they could:

“…you didn’t need to hear him to know that he had seen about as much of Philadelphia as he ever wanted to see. And Philadelphia had seen as much of him as it wanted to see, too.”

Read the rest of this entry »