The Dream and the Nightmare of Having an Ace

There is no more sought-after commodity than the ace starting pitcher. It’s true in the offseason and it’s true at the deadline, and it’s why so many eyes are soon going to be on the White Sox front office. The White Sox, you see, are in possession of Chris Sale, and should they choose to relieve themselves of his talent, every other executive alive is going to daydream. Any sort of player can be valuable, in any sort of role, but aces feel singularly able to take over ballgames. We gather that baseball can’t be figured out, yet an ace promises to make things uncomplicated.

Teams want aces during the regular season because they stabilize rotations and they theoretically ward off bad slumps. Teams especially want aces during the playoffs, because having an ace should just make things so simple. An unhittable pitcher can win a team a series. Every team wants an ace like Noah Syndergaard. Every team wants an ace like Madison Bumgarner. As it happened, the two squared off Wednesday, the Giants and the Mets having everything on the line. In the end, the reality of what it is to have an ace became apparent. And at the same time, in the end, the ace mythology will live on. The Giants lived the dream that every team imagines.

There is what aces usually mean, and there is what aces occasionally mean. The Mets are the team that reality slapped, the cautionary tale against overconfidence. Which is not to say the Mets themselves were overconfident — but there should be no room for counting one’s chickens, no matter who takes the mound. The Mets had Noah Syndergaard at the tippy-top of his game. The Mets went home defeated.

One of baseball’s little secrets is that, come playoff time, the landscape is remarkably even. Injuries aside, playoff rosters are optimized, and playoff rosters have good players, those being necessary for involvement in the first place. It’s great if a team has an ace starter or two, but the opponent is likely to have one, as well. Even if there’s no classic ace, all starters in the playoffs are at least pretty good. The margins between players are smaller, and smaller margins lead to less predictability.

The Mets found themselves in the enviable position of being able to throw a Syndergaard. But this being October, Syndergaard didn’t get to go opposite a Matt Wisler. There was a Bumgarner, and when there’s a Bumgarner, there’s the chance for a duel. Syndergaard, to his credit, came out prepared. I’m not sure he could’ve pitched any better than he did. Zero runs scored in seven innings. Facing baseball’s best contact lineup, Syndergaard recorded 10 strikeouts, Denard Span calling him “literally unhittable.” The Giants managed two hits, one of them being an infield squibber. Syndergaard left his opponent feeling helpless. Yet he couldn’t pitch every one of the innings.

Addison Reed is very good, yet he narrowly escaped his own trouble. Jeurys Familia is very good, and for him there was no escaping. The margins between players and teams being small, an elimination game was largely decided by Conor Gillaspie, which is not meaningfully different from saying it was largely decided by randomness. The Mets had their ace. Their ace was great. He took the game over for as long as he could. It still wasn’t enough. The Mets were reminded that one player is seldom enough.

And the Giants were reminded that one player is sometimes enough. One player, I suppose, and a little Gillaspie. The Mets got to live a realistic ace experience. The Giants got to live a ceiling ace experience, and their experience is precisely why aces will forever remain in demand. With draft picks and prospects, observers are teased by players’ upsides. That applies just as well to player types, and the Giants’ evening was everything they could’ve hoped it would be.

The Giants would’ve come in believing in Bumgarner, and, that would be it. You fantasize that an ace will win the damn game, and Bumgarner was in there from start to finish. Mike Trout‘s unlikely to win a given game by himself. Zach Britton‘s unlikely to win a given game by himself. Bumgarner did very nearly everything, making Bruce Bochy’s job impossibly simple. He didn’t need to so much as think about his bullpen. He had his man for nine innings, and he needed one offensive break. The whole time, the Mets got a runner in scoring position once. Syndergaard was a conspicuous sort of dominant. Bumgarner’s more subtle, and therefore more frustrating. Still, the opportunities just weren’t there.

When you think about aces in the playoffs, you don’t think about outcomes like Syndergaard’s. You don’t think about outcomes like Clayton Kershaw‘s, or David Price’s. You think about what Bumgarner did to the Mets. You think about what Jake Arrieta did to the Pirates. What Bumgarner did to the Pirates. What Bumgarner did to the Cardinals. What Bumgarner did to the Royals. What Bumgarner did to the Royals again. You think about the best-case scenario, because only an ace might deliver such a scenario. What any team and coach most want is a player who makes things easy for them. Only an ace stands a real chance, and though most of the time it doesn’t work out so well, who could forget the times that it does? The performances are instantly unforgettable, and unforgettable memories last a long time.

There’s always talk about teams who want to ride an ace to a championship. The talk takes place because it’s a reasonably easy thing to imagine, a pitcher repeatedly going out and taking control from start to finish. This is not the way the world works. This is not the way the playoffs work. Except that, sometimes, it very much is, it unforgettably is, and then all you need is one good swing from literally anyone in support. It could be Conor Gillaspie, it could be Hunter Pence, it could be Gorkys Hernandez. In theory, an ace can make winning so simple. It almost never actually is, but it is often enough for the myth to survive.

And so teams will seek their No. 1s, hoping to catch some Bumgarner in a bottle. Hoping to find someone who makes it comfortable, who makes it uncomplicated. For every classic Bumgarner, there are a few Wednesday Syndergaards, tales of great pitchers who still needed help. But the pull of playoff simplicity is unrelenting. Every team wants that which very rarely happens.