So That Happened
Source: FanGraphs
One of the most insane baseball games anyone has ever seen. We will have attempts at analysis later. Now, just amazement.
Dave is the Managing Editor of FanGraphs.
Source: FanGraphs
One of the most insane baseball games anyone has ever seen. We will have attempts at analysis later. Now, just amazement.
Dave is the Managing Editor of FanGraphs.
This is why we love baseball.
I’d much rather watch a baseball game than a homerun derby. MLB has no credibility with me after what I saw tonight.
we definitely need to get a sample of this latest batch of WS game balls to Ben Lindbergh…
Shouldn’t have any trouble getting enough from fans in the stands…
Aside from the guy that stole the HR ball from that fan’s wife and threw it back on the field…
“Fan’s wife”? What exactly makes you sure she’s not a fan too?
These were the top 2 lineups in MLB according to wRC+. Why should we be surprised that a bunch of pitchers who are gassed can’t execute when this series has a dozen players who posted at least a 117 wRC+?
Pretty sure the balls did not have much to do with the existence of the Crawford boxes in left field, gifting Correa a HR that would be a can of corn in any other park. Puig’s HR would have only gone out of 3 other stadiums.
Game 4 was 1-1 into the 9th. Game 1 was 3-1 and was under two and a half hours. Its not like every game has been a slugfest homerun derby.
Did you mean to type slowpitch?
Actually, if you liked that then you must hate baseball. (Because real baseball isn’t anything like that.
Not everybody finds “Dead Ball Era” baseball exciting.
Instant classic doesn’t even begin to describe what went down tonight. There’s a million things noteworthy about that but as a neutral fan I can’t help but feel bad for Morrow and Jensen, they’ve been ridden so hard this postseason and just looked out of gas through no fault of their own.
At some point people are going to start realizing that turning to the bullpen at the first possible opportunity on every occasion in the postseason is going to result in a lot of exhausted relievers who struggle for every out.
The issue isn’t so much going to the bullpen early and often but always calling on the same 2 or 3 relievers that the manager “trusts.”
I agree with forestation, and my take is that Dave Cameron has been pretty consistent in also criticizing managers for using top relievers to hold big leads of even 5 or 6 runs rather than trusting lesser relievers in those situations.
Roberts using Jansen to close out the Cubs up 5 runs was malpractice.
That was my main issue with Francona’s bullpen use last year. What happened to Dan Otero during the playoffs? He was amazing during the regular season. But in the playoffs, Francona refused to use him in any close games.
On the blog last night I asked if Francisco Liriano was still alive.
And not allowing a RPer to go more than a batter or two. If you’re going to use 5 and 6 pitchers every game, they are going to be gassed before long.
They could have just asked Aroldis Chapman.
They have all winter to rest up. If they win, they have all winter to rest up, as champions! Flags fly forever!
Thanks for staying up and taking it in with us Dave. Looking forward to reading some content tomorrow. I am so thankful for fangraphs, which helps to extend the fun of the game after the game. games like this remind me why I am a member.
Watching this from my desk in Aust was an incredible way to finish the work day. damn
CANT DENY EVEN 0.0001%
THE GREATEST GAME EVER PLAYED ON THE PLANET
A lot is going to be narrated about this game. Two teams played great. One team won. Biggest thing to takeaway from this game….I think it is going to be tough for a non-great team to win a world series in next couple of years. Too many great teams.
Longest games of exactly 10 innings in MLB history:
5:19 – tonight
5:00 – Sep. 22, 2007 TOR @ NYY
4:51 – Aug. 31, 1991 DET @ OAK
4:51 – Apr. 10, 1991 PHI @ NYM
4:48 – June 24, 2010 BOS @ COL
4:46 – July 30, 2013 LAA @ TEX
This game took 4:52 to get through 9, so I guess if Chris Taylor had correctly picked up the memo to run on that 8th-inning liner (causing the game to end in regulation), it would have beaten a 4:45 Yankees-Red Sox duel from 2006 for longest 9-inning game ever instead of being disqualified from that particular leaderboard. Still, as you can see, the first 9 innings alone would be enough to place 2nd on a list of longest 10-inning games, and even more ridiculously, they would still place 4th comparing to games that went exactly 11 innings.
How much do you suppose Rob Manfred cares about pace of play now?
I’m glad you brought up pace of play. Not too many epic games completed in 2:31. The implication that shorter means more entertaining never made any sense.
Eh, yes and no. A 1-0 pitchers’ duel can be quite epic. Too, I think there are ways to play a watchable, exciting slugfest and still finish in fewer than 5 hours. The Jays-Phillies 15-14 World Series game finished in 4:14.
No one cares about pace of play when the game is longer due to game action.
The problem is when games are taking longer from non-action, such as increased time between pitches adding another 10 minutes to the game.
If they cut down on commercials, catcher and pitching coach visits, and guys threw the ball quicker, you could easily have finished the game with the same amount of time in 1 hour less than they did. Sure, a 5 hour crazy exciting game is better than a 3.5 hour snoozefest, but there’s no reason we can’t both speed up the play and keep the same action.
Great game, but not sure I’m a fan of 4+ hour home run derbies. Guys were just teeing off like it was batting practice. Who knows how much of it was due to the slick ball, to postseason overuse, and/or just great hitting, but pitchers just look like deer in headlights this WS, and it doesn’t matter if you’re a historically elite P.
This game could have been the greatest possible ad for the game for kids. But it ended after 1 in the morning est even though it was played on a sunday and there’s school the next day so how many kids saw the whole thing? Why why why was it not played in the afternoon?
Because having these juiced balls in a day game would produce 700 ft home runs.
Cant wait for a WS involving the Rockies, and the expansion team from Mexico City (higher altitude still)…. Maybe Giancarlo Stanton will be a Rockie … imagine that distance. 700 may be “a bit short”
Move with the kids to Hawaii. Win win !!
Easy go-to for the rest of your life: anytime you’re confused as to why an official thing happens the way it does, or something that is incredibly short-sighted and nonsensical occurs, the answer is always the same.
Money.
Why would advertisers pay more when there will be fewer viewers?
I think part of the calculation is that there won’t necessarily be more total viewers in the afternoon than in the evening. Weekend afternoon Word Series games end up scheduled against the bulk of NFL and college football games, for example.
I know it is comparing apples to oranges, but Fangraphs live blog had more people on at 1:30 than at any other point of the broadcast.
I went to sleep at 11:45 since I had to be up at 6:30. No regrets. As much as I’d like to stay up until 2 a m, it’s not happening.
That was way too late for a lot of adults, myself included.
1:40am in the East, fantastic job MLB, even your most ardent fans didnt get to see it. No excuse to start at 820pm on a Sunday.
yeah, because all of baseball’s “most ardent fans” live in EDT, right?
If we assume that people in one time zone are just as likely to be “ardent fans” as those in another time zone, then not all of them, but at least a plurality, with the vast majority in the Eastern or Central: http://www.newtimezones.com/pdfs/current_economic_crisis.pdf
I know that’s not a phenomenal source, but all the sources I saw reported the same thing: approximately 47% of the US population is in the Eastern time zone, with another 30% or so in the Central.
1:37 to be exact here on the east coast. I had put a 2:00 time limit on.
When you see a game like this in mid-July, between two ordinary teams, you just laugh it off, whether your team came out on top or not. “After all, it’s not like one of them deserved it more than the other, really,” you say to yourself, “but that was sure crazy and fun.” I don’t envy the baseball writers and analysts who, for professional reasons, have to pretend to find some “why” to write about here, some sensible explanation for THAT.
The problem is that games like this never happen. The only one I can find from this year was in September in Chicago. A day game. It’s a good bet that the wind was blowing out hard that day.
In that respect, it kinda takes the wind out of those breathless “best game ever” declarations; but on the other hand, consider the STAGE. The quintessential ‘Pivotal Game 5’ of the World Series, but this time in a world where a Reality TV star is POTUS and quantum physics/alternative timelines/infinite multiverse are our reality’s backdrop.
Yep, it’s totally believable that we are all living in a Simulation
Yes. It’s silly to call this the “best game ever” in terms of baseball — that was a horribly played game of baseball! — but it was certainly quite a spectacle.
There’s a very sensible explanation. The managers have been using their pitchers like toothbrushes and they’re out of gas. Same as game 7 in the world series last year.
Kershaw and Keuchel?
15 runs were given up yesterday by pitchers other than kershaw and keuchel in 11 innings.
And 7 of those runs were off pitchers that it’s very tough to argue have been overworked this postseason: McHugh, Devenski, and Cingrani. Another 3 runs were off relievers who were arguably fatigued – Peacock and Maeda – though that had to do with their respective workloads in Game 3 on Friday night rather than across the post-season as a whole.
Dave – you missed the single biggest “out of gas” culprit (Morrow).
I agree that Morrow appeared to be out of gas.
My prior point is that John referenced 15 runs, so let’s go through those runs and think about workload for each reliever.
Hope it goes 7. Extras in 7.
Terrible game.
Fake balls thrown to a moving strike zone to be launched over a fako miniature left field wall. Five hours of nonsense. Why ruin the game for a few more bucks worth of television commercials?
I wish I could downvote this more than once
People have been watching major league baseball for decades. When they see a game like this immediately after players are complaining about the balls, why would you dismiss the concerns?
And you immediately accept the multiple straw man arguments from him as truth, while differing to some nebulous “decades of baseball watching” nonsense as an argument for what? A good reason not to enjoy a really fun game?
How many 25 run games have you seen in all your years? How many 1 handed home runs have you seen?
So the game as it is now does not match your understanding of what it should be… LA at 100 degrees, ball is going to fly. Minute Maid Park is a hitters park, with patient, power oriented lineups doing their thing. It is not a surprise this series has been wild, but it’s been so much more beautifully wild than we could have imagined. It’s great, how are you not enjoying it?
Minute Maid Park has been a neutral park for a while as center field takes away as many homers as left field gives up.
A lot of both. As a Cub fan, when the wind blows out at Wrigley, a 23-22 score is not shocking.
The Bobby Thompson home-run, probably the most famous in baseball history, was hit over a wall only 275 feet from home plate.
Baseball has always had a lot of quirkiness. And there are many ways to enjoy the game. I loved the well-pitched, well-played, extremely brisk Game one, that ended in two and a half hours. And I loved Games 2 and 5 which took twice as long.
This has been the most entertaining Series since 2001.
It’s d-e-f-e-r-r-i-n-g.
And 13-12 is shit baseball.
Speak for yourself. I watched the eventual 116 win 2001 Mariners blow a 12-0 lead to Cleveland and it was a historic game and more importantly, extremely fun to watch. Some of us very much enjoy seeing the ultra-unlikely happen in real time.
Fun to watch? The hell it was.
So, my feelings are definitely invalid due to being on this losing side of this, but to me this thing didn’t even feel like baseball. It was like, I don’t know, a weird parallel baseball where hitting and pitching is reversed; that is to say, where pitcher’s only get the batter out about 1/3 of the time, and it’s just a game of who can end the game with the fewest runs allowed. The end of this game felt like the end of a basketball game, where being down three whole points is like striking distance. Which it was, given that a 3+ run lead was erased three times.
It’s not invalid if your feelings are, rather than disappointment, that this looked fake.
Well as a giants fan i guess i’m sort of on the winning side and it also didn’t feel like baseball to me. The 3-pointer analogy is great.
To me it felt like an arena football game. At a quick glance, it looks a football game but then a closer look reveals that it is a cheap version.
To me, it makes me appreciate Game 1 and Game 3 more. This game was the result of both teams playing to the last inning for the previous 4.
The Kershaw playoff narrative is alive and well… That’s going to be the big thing from tonight I think. 4-0 lead and 7-4 lead and not able to hold it. He had a chance to bury it once and for ever and just didn’t. And you wonder health wise if he’s ever going to be able to really bury it.
Mariano Rivera is having the best October ever.
yeah, I would agree. of course, Rivera had a hiccup right at about this point in his career (in 2001)- and he recovered.
I do wonder if we’re going to see the excessive bullpenning that we’ve been seeing maybe scaled back in the playoffs to some degree. And not really with how Houston did it where they had a tandem start set up like in game 3. But like what LA did in 2 with Rich Hill followed by a guy they were expecting to go like 5 batters tops.
It’s going to be tough to call this a ‘bullpen series’ after a game where the teams combine to blow a 4-run lead and two 3-run leads.
Apparently a bad night to have a family emergency and miss the game. 🙁
Anyone know of a link to a recording of the World Series games (or at least last night’s game) by any chance? Many thanks in advance.
I feel sure it will be replayed on MLB Network today.
Anyone have a link to a recording of last night’s world series game by any chance? Seems like it was a bad night to have a family emergency. 🙁
Many thanks in advance.
These were the top 2 lineups in MLB according to wRC+, with several of the game’s best hitters executing against pitchers who are gassed. Stop blaming the balls for pitchers who aren’t executing and batters who are.
one thing i wonder with the same guys especially with the Dodgers going every game is there just is no surprise now for anything he throws….
right now just using Brandon Morrow-
Springer- 3 pa’s
Bregman- 4 pa’s
Altuve- 3 pa’s
Correa- 3 pa’s
Gurriel- 2 pa’s
Reddick- 2 pa’s
so of the 20 pa’s he’s thrown in the WS- those 6 have seen 17 of those. With 4 of the 5 seeing him now at least 3 times.
or Jansen. He’s seen Altuve 4 times, McCann,Springer, and Bregman 3 times, and 4 guys twice now.
You would think the more that a batter sees a particular pitcher the more effective he would be.
Very good point. Especially such can be the case for a pitcher who throws only 1 or 2 types of pitches.
yeah and you would think since so many batters are seeing the same guys over and over again- that they can talk amongst each other and it’s even that much worse.
Not the same as your typical LOGGY situation where same guy may see a pitcher 5 or 6 times- but he’s the only one who sees him. So not quite the same I would think….
incredible, exciting baseball. No time complaints here, live in Thailand. The game was over at lunchtime.
Damn, we should’ve all thought of that…
I just wonder if we’re ever going to see the great Kershaw again- on a real consistent basis…. Yeah maybe a great start like game 1 of the WS- but not consistently.
his numbers since coming off the dl are a huge concern….
pre dl stint- he had given up 18 hr in 141.1 ip. But still a 2.04 ERA and a 24/168 bb/k ratio
post dl stint- he’s given up 13 hr in 62.2 ip. A 3.88 ERA and a 14/63 bb/k ratio(extrapolate that to 141.1 ip and it’s 32/142) And extrapolate the hr to 141.1 ip and it’s a whopping 29 hr. And 10 straight games giving up a homer.
i can think of no comp to Kershaw in any major sport. He has demonstrably been– by any metric– the best pitcher of his generation– in fact, in terms of ERA+ the best starting pitcher since WWII. I’ve eyeballed 39 HOFers, top starters, or other postseason performers with a lot of innings since and including Koufax– Kershaw ranks ahead of only Bret Saberhagen (who had a great WS when young– and was lit up a few times late in his career in the playoffs) in terms of ERA. Only Sabathia is close of all the rest, and he hasn’t been all that worse than his regular season metrics. So the best pitcher of his generation in the regular season has been just about the worst pitcher of his time in the postseason. It is simply inexplicable– like Billy Beane “my shit doesn’t work in the playoffs” times ten. Any thoughts?? he single-handedly wrecked his bullpen tonight– ironically, if it goes to Game Seven, he may need to be the saviour in relief.
I have two thoughts:
1. In the bowels of statistical literacy, I beseech you, consider the possibility that it really might be random variance
2. A bunch of the runs charged to Kershaw last night were allowed to score by Maeda, and a bunch of the ones that weren’t were on one weird mistake-pitch dinger. Mistakes happen.
Worst ?
Hardly.
The flaw in that characterization is that worse pitchers aren’t given the opportunity to ( for example ) give up the most HR’s in a single post season. In other words, his greatness in the regular season exacerbates his post season issues.
Same issue to a much lesser extent with Pedro Martinez. Had Grady Little taken him out 2 batters earlier, his “mixed” post season reputation would be non-existent.
he said the group he was looking at was 39 either HOF’s, top starters, or other postseason guys with a lot of innings. So it would be a group of his peers, except for postseason guys with a lot of innings. So the only one that it’s not a fair comparison with is the postseason pitchers.
Bottom line- he’s not comparing Kershaw to 4th/5th starters. He’s comparing him to guys like Jim Palmer, Roger Clemens, Andy Pettitte, Greg Maddux, etc.
You are right, my bad. Please take away my upvotes 🙁
While Kershaw has not been great in the playoffs, he hasn’t been awful.
In his postseason career, including starts and relief, he has a 10.3 K/9, a 2.67 BB/9, a 1.37 HR/9, and a 4.50 ERA.
That contrasts with a 9.86 K/9, a 2.36 BB/9, a 0.60 HR/9, and a 2.36 ERA in the regular season.
And his postseason FIP is 3.73 with an xFIP of 3.23.
His regular season FIP is 2.60 with an xFIP of 2.92.
So he’s been noticeably worse in the postseason, but some of that was luck, some was a larger number of home runs, and some is that most pitchers will be worse in the postseason because they are facing better hitters, on average. It’s also possible that his regular season numbers are buoyed by an unnaturally low HR rate that, for whatever reason, doesn’t continue in the playoffs.
so just looking…… there have been in the last 10 years 7 pitchers inducted into the hall of fame… along with Kershaw
Clayton Kershaw- 2.36/2.60/2.92 rs to 4.50/3.73/3.28
Randy Johnson- 3.29/3.19/3.23 rs to 3.50/3.30/4.10
Pedro Martinez-2.93/2.91/3.44 rs to 3.46/3.75/4.31
John Smoltz- 3.33/3.24/3.28 rs to 2.67/3.18/3.33
Greg Maddux- 3.16/3.26/3.73 rs to 3.26/3.66/4.45
Tom Glavine- 3.54/3.95/4.57 rs to 3.42/4.27/5.80
Bert Blyleven- 3.31/3.19 rs to 2.47/3.29
Rich Gossage- 3.01/3.18 rs to 2.87/2.89
as you see, you had 4 of the 7 guys actually better in the postseason by ERA- with 2 of the 7 better by FIP. Of the guys worse- only Pedro was one that was much worse- by .53 in ERA and .84 in FIP. Kershaw is 2.14 worse by ERA and 1.13 worse in FIP.
FWIW: Pedro’s numbers took a big hit in 2009, when he was way past his prime.
He’s also had a fair amount of aggressive usage in the post-season, such as short-rest starts.
but others haven’t? Just using John Smoltz, he had 6 starts in his career on 3 days rest. On the other hand- the number of starts Kershaw has had on short rest- 4. But the problem with this… In those 4 starts Kershaw is 1-1 with a 3.16 ERA. 6/34 bb/k ratio. Much better than his normal postseason stats quite frankly. Of the 7 starts where he’s given up 4+ runs in the postseason- 2 were 1st start of postseason(so regular rest), 1 was on 6 days rest, 2 was on 5 days rest, and 1 other 1 on 4 days rest(regular rest). Only once did he give up 4 runs on a short rest start….
The Peyton Manning of baseball?
I’ll surely be glad when this parade of yahoos that invades Fangraphs every October will be gone
Andy Rooney ? Is that you ?
Personally, I was finding myself getting bored in the game at times. I don’t care how long a game takes, and most of the time I would advocate for more action. The pace of last night was just terrible. There were parts that just were like pushing a plow to get through.
5 years from now, if I even think about the game I will think more in lines of “That was a long game” instead of every thing else that happened.
There is a way to do a good slug fest. But in my opinion, last night just didn’t work for me. I am happy it worked for some other people.
This graph is what “it gets better, before it gets worse” looks like.
To second many other commenters, this is why we love baseball.