I’m trying out a new format for our managerial report cards this postseason. In the past, I went through every game from every manager, whether they played 22 games en route to winning the World Series or got swept out of the wild card round. To be honest, I hated writing those brief blurbs. No one is all that interested in the manager who ran out the same lineup twice, or saw his starters get trounced and used his best relievers anyway because the series was so short. This year, I’m skipping the first round, and grading only the managers who survived until at least the best-of-five series. Today, we’ll start with the two managers who lost in the American League Divisional Series, Aaron Boone and A.J. Hinch.

My goal is to evaluate each manager in terms of process, not results. If you bring in your best pitcher to face their best hitter in a huge spot, that’s a good decision regardless of the outcome. Try a triple steal with the bases loaded only to have the other team make four throwing errors to score three runs? I’m probably going to call that a blunder even though it worked out. Managers do plenty of other things — getting team buy-in for new strategies or unconventional bullpen usage behind closed doors is a skill I find particularly valuable — but as I have no insight into how that’s accomplished or how each manager differs, I can’t exactly assign grades for it.

I’m also purposefully avoiding vague qualitative concerns like “trusting your veterans because they’ve been there before.” Playoff coverage lovingly focuses on clutch plays by proven performers, but Cam Schlittler and Michael Busch were also great this October. Forget trusting your veterans; the playoffs are about trusting your best players. Blake Snell is important because he’s great, not because of the number of playoff series he’s appeared in. There’s nothing inherently good about having been around a long time; when I’m evaluating decisions, “but he’s a veteran” just doesn’t enter my thought process.

I’m always looking for new analytical wrinkles in critiquing managerial decisions. I’m increasingly viewing pitching as a tradeoff between protecting your best relievers from overexposure and minimizing your starters’ weakest matchups, which means that I’m grading managers on multiple axes in every game. I think that almost no pitching decision is a no-brainer these days; there are just too many competing priorities to make anything totally obvious. That means I’m going to be less certain in my evaluation of pitching than of hitting, but I’ll try to make my confidence level clear in each case. Let’s get to it. Read the rest of this entry »

Until the Mariners traded for the Diamondbacks’ Josh Naylor on July 24, they had a first base problem. For the second season in a row, subpar first-half production from their first sackers threatened to derail their bid for a playoff spot, and while they hadn’t shied away from addressing the issue last summer, they ended up missing a Wild Card berth by a single win nonetheless. In his first big swing at upgrading their roster this summer, president of baseball operations Jerry Dipoto dealt for Naylor, and since then, he’s proven to be one of their most reliable players — not just at the plate, but on the bases and in the field as well. He’s shown off all facets of his game during this postseason, including in Monday night’s 10-3 ALCS Game 2 win over the Blue Jays, during which he notched his third three-hit effort in the past four games.

After collecting the hit that helped the Mariners clinch a playoff berth — a bases-loaded, eighth-inning double off the Rockies’ Victor Vodnik on September 23 — and closing the regular season with a 12-game hitting streak, Naylor’s October actually began inauspiciously. He went hitless in the Mariners’ first three Division Series games against the Tigers, with a first-inning walk against Game 1 starter Troy Melton his only positive result across a stretch of 14 plate appearances; he just missed hitting one out against Melton in the fourth inning of that game, a 108.2-mph drive hauled in just a few feet in front of the right-center field wall. Only once during the regular season had he gone hitless in three straight games, that from June 1–4 while a member of the Diamondbacks. One of the few highlights from his more recent dry spell was his unassisted double play to seal the Mariners’ Game 3 victory, when he speared a liner off the bat of Parker Meadows, then doubled Andy Ibáñez off first.

Naylor started filling in the hit column with a 3-for-4 afternoon in the Mariners’ 9-3 loss in Game 4, doubling off Casey Mize and scoring a run in the second inning, then singling off Tyler Holton and coming around to score in the fourth, at which point the Mariners led 2-0. He pulled off another unassisted double play in the fourth, this time off a Colt Keith one-hopper that caught Gleyber Torres retreating to first base. Alas, by the time Naylor led off the eighth with a single off Melton, Seattle trailed 8-3. Too little, too late. Read the rest of this entry »

Philadelphia, late in a must-win road game in a tightly contested playoff series, has all but gotten a stop. The team has held serve, against all odds blanking its opponent to force another frame and extend the season. Then, all of a sudden, the ball does something weird. It goes in a direction nobody anticipated, and as the entire Delaware Valley looks on in disbelieving horror, the home team scores to seal a walk-off win and advance to the next round.

I’m sure you’ve deduced from the lack of proper nouns in the previous paragraph that I’m not talking about the recently concluded Phillies-Dodgers NLDS, or the Orion Kerkering throwing error that ended it. No, I’m talking about this.

Oh yeah, Phillies fans, we’re gonna feel even worse than you thought today. Read the rest of this entry »

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley revisit Meg’s experience of Mariners-Tigers ALDS Game 5 and recap the first few games of the Championship Series round, touching on postseason broadcast booths, the Mariners’ mauling of the Blue Jays in Toronto, Pat Murphy’s burnishing of the Brewers’ underdog image, broader narrative-building about the Brewers-Dodgers series, whether the Dodgers intentionally took it easy during the regular season, the GIDP heard ’round the world, starters moonlighting as relievers, Blake Snell, and more, plus closing banter about manager news and Pete Alonso’s contract target in his second crack at free agency.

Audio intro: Jimmy Kramer, “Effectively Wild Theme”
Audio outro: Tom Rhoads, “Effectively Wild Theme”

Link to sign up for Patreon
Link to Meg’s 2386 postscript
Link to playoff win expectancy changes
Link to Humpy article
Link to Humpy video
Link to worst BsR w/30+ SB
Link to AL team Gold Gloves
Link to NL team Gold Gloves
Link to The Bandwagon on Gold Gloves
Link to GIDP video
Link to GIDP article
Link to Cooper on the GIDP
Link to Turang on his near-HBP
Link to Stathead on 100-pitch playoff games
Link to jacked Jays fan
Link to Robles play
Link to Passan on the NLCS
Link to Murphy’s “eight guys” quote
Link to Defector comment
Link to Craig on the Dodgers
Link to Schildt story
Link to Hinch story
Link to Alonso report
Link to Sam on “seeking”

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It could not have started worse. Yoshinobu Yamamoto’s first pitch of NLCS Game 2 was a 97-mph four-seam fastball to Jackson Chourio, the Brewers’ powerful leadoff hitter. Chourio promptly hammered it 389 feet into the Dodgers’ bullpen. It landed like a signal to the relievers milling out on the berm: Be alert, you might be needed sooner than you thought.

They would not be necessary. It’s hard to imagine a better pitching performance than that of Yamamoto’s teammate, Blake Snell, who delivered 10 strikeouts over eight innings the previous night. But Yamamoto managed to one-up him.

Over 111 magnificent pitches, Yamamoto rendered the Brewers’ bats rudderless, holding them to that single run over a three-hit complete game. It was the first in the playoffs in eight years, and it certainly offered one possible solution to the Dodgers’ bullpen woes: What if you just didn’t need those guys? Read the rest of this entry »

Shea Langeliers has emerged as one of baseball’s best backstops. Building on a 2024 season in which he swatted 29 home runs while logging a 109 wRC+, the 27-year-old slashed .277/.325/.536 with 31 home runs and a 132 wRC+. Moreover, he lowered his strikeout rate from 27.2% to 19.7%, and upped his WAR from 2.0 to 3.9. Those numbers came with the Athletics, who acquired Langeliers in the March 2022 trade that sent Matt Olson to the Braves.

Taken ninth overall by Atlanta in 2019 out of Baylor University, Langeliers was called “the consensus best catcher in [that year’s] draft not named Adley Rutschman” by Eric Longenhagen and Kevin Goldstein. When ranking Langeliers fifth in the Braves system in the spring of 2021, our then-prospect analyst duo also opined that “offensive development will dictate his ultimate value, as his defense is big league-ready right now.” As the numbers show, the right-handed hitter’s offense has developed just fine.

Langeliers sat down to talk hitting when the A’s visited Boston in September.

———

David Laurila: How have you changed as a hitter over the years? For instance, are your swing and setup any different from when you got to pro ball?

Shea Langeliers: “Those haven’t changed a whole lot. What has changed is how I’m mentally ready to hit sooner, throughout the process, if that makes sense. A good way to explain it would be, before release being able to physically pull the trigger on my swing. Being ready to hit earlier in the loading process gives me more time to see the pitch and react to it. It’s also a good mental cue for me.

“Another thing is that when I first got to the big leagues, I was trying to hit everything as hard as I can, all the time. I’ve dialed that down a little bit. There is a little more bat control now, so I’m missing fewer pitches.”

Laurila: Can you elaborate on being ready to hit earlier? Read the rest of this entry »

Say what you want about Blake Snell. You may not find his Only Use Strike Zone in Case of Emergency pitching style fun to watch, but in Game 1 of the National League Championship Series, the Brewers found it even less pleasant to hit against. Snell carved through a Milwaukee lineup that scored 22 runs in the NLDS like a knife through nothing at all, ending his night by retiring 17 straight. He faced the minimum over eight innings in an absolutely dominant performance as the Dodgers beat the Brewers, 2-1, to take a 1-0 lead in the NLCS.

A prolonged bout of shoulder inflammation limited Snell to just 11 starts and 61 1/3 innings this season, but over those 11 starts, he was excellent, running a 2.35 ERA and 2.69 FIP. He’d been even better in the playoffs, earning wins against the Reds and Phillies and allowing just two runs, five hits, and five walks while striking out 18. On Monday night, he made those performances look like warmup outings. Snell went eight innings for just the second time in his entire career, and finished with 10 strikeouts, no walks, and one hit. That one hit was a weak line drive that third baseman Caleb Durbin dumped into center field in the third inning. Durbin then broke for second way too early, allowing Snell to throw over to first and catch him easily at second. “You gotta disrupt it,” said Milwaukee manager Pat Murphy between innings. “You gotta do something. He looks really sharp.” The Brewers didn’t do anything.

It wasn’t surprising to see Snell dealing, but it was surprising to see him not walking anyone. The game plan for the Brewers was simple, if difficult to execute. They had the lowest chase rate and the sixth-highest walk rate in baseball this season. They needed to be patient and force Snell to throw the ball in the zone. The Dodgers wanted the same thing. “I can’t have him nibble,” said Los Angeles manager Dave Roberts before the game. Snell didn’t nibble. He hit the zone 50% of the time, well above his regular season rate of 44%, and only a hair under the major league average of 51%. It was just the third time in the past two seasons that he’d gone without a base on balls. His changeup was particularly devastating, and he threw it 37% of the time, the second-highest rate of his entire career. Between innings, he sat on the bench and flipped through a half-inch three-ring binder that held either scouting reports or notes for an AP chemistry midterm. Read the rest of this entry »

On Friday night in Seattle, Logan Gilbert was on the mound gutting out two scoreless innings of relief a mere two days after he’d won the third game of the American League Division Series. That performance was do or die; hold the Tigers scoreless or head home for winter. The entire Mariners team contributed to that 15-inning win, never mind any knock-on effects for the pitching staff. A few days after that, on Monday in Toronto, Gilbert tried to reprise his heroic, short-rest effort against a relentless Blue Jays offense in Game 2 of the American League Championship Series.

The Mariners couldn’t expect to get a peak Gilbert start, so their bats had to put up enough runs to outrun the ongoing effects of the massive workload its pitching staff shouldered late last week. The offense delivered plenty of scoring, and the pitchers more than held their own despite the circumstances. When it was all settled in a 10-3 Seattle win, the Mariners were just two wins away from their first World Series appearance in franchise history. Read the rest of this entry »

It was really close. On Sunday, in Game 1 of the American League Championship Series, in the top of the first inning, with one out and runners on first and third, once and future hero playoff hero Jorge Polanco hit a bouncer to the third baseman. The runner on third was going on contact, but the runner on third was Cal Raleigh, and while relatively quick for a catcher, the Sultan of Squat is not exactly known for his speed. Had the ball been hit anywhere other than directly at a corner infielder, he might have beaten it easily. Instead, Addison Barger’s throw beat Raleigh to the bag by at least three metres (the game was in Canada, after all). But it was still really close.

The throw arrived in plenty of time, and it was by no means off target. To make sure he ran no risk of hitting the runner, Barger wisely threw the ball toward the right side – the first base side – of catcher Alejandro Kirk’s body. The throw wasn’t high either, but it did arrive at shoulder height. Raleigh was running as hard as he could, and in the time it took Kirk to swing his catcher’s mitt from high on his right side to low on his left side, he’d closed the distance to roughly one metre. Then Kirk made an important decision. With Raleigh bearing down on him, he chose not to keep swinging the glove down and toward the plate. He reached out for a high tag and swept the left side of his body out of the way in the same moment. Self-preservation undoubtedly played a role in the decision. It cost him valuable centimetres (God, this feels wrong), and it very nearly allowed Raleigh to sneak his right cleat between Kirk’s legs and onto home plate before his torso crashed into the mitt. For the briefest of moments, the two catchers looked like colliding galaxies, smashing then spinning together as their gravitational fields intertwined:

In real time, the play went from looking like a sure out to an impossibly close call. Maybe Raleigh got his foot in there and maybe he didn’t. The call on the field was out, and unbelievably, the Mariners declined to challenge it. The video never got dissected by the replay room in New York. The chief marketing officer of Zoom Communications, Inc. surely wept. Read the rest of this entry »

The matchup for the National League Championship Series is set, and it will feature the team with the best record in baseball and the team everyone thought would have the best record in baseball. The battle between the Milwaukee Brewers and the Los Angeles Dodgers will be a clash of styles. It’s big market versus small market. Superstars versus Average Joes. But make no mistake, even though Los Angeles has the name recognition (and all the money and resources in the world), Milwaukee’s scrappy roster is one of the most talented in baseball; the Brew Crew’s 6-0 record against the Dodgers during the regular season is evidence of that.

The Brewers’ win over the Chicago Cubs in the NLDS was their first postseason series victory since 2018, when they reached the NLCS only to lose to the Dodgers in seven games. This is their fourth appearance in the Championship Series, and they’re playing for a chance to advance to the World Series for just the second time in franchise history. As for the Dodgers, they’re the defending champions; this will be their eighth NLCS appearance in the last 13 years, making this well-trod ground for them.

The Brewers and Dodgers took very different paths to their success this season, and both have some key questions to answer in the NLCS. Here are the storylines to watch for.

Will the Brewers have enough pitching?

Want another example of these two ballclubs’ contrasting styles? Look no further than their respective pitching staffs. Due to a number of spring injuries, the Brewers started the season with a patchwork starting rotation, but that group quickly stabilized thanks to the emergence of Quinn Priester and Chad Patrick, the return of Brandon Woodruff, and the debut of Jacob Misiorowski. Injuries struck again towards the end of the regular season; Woodruff was sidelined with a lat strain in September and veteran Jose Quintana returned from a calf strain just in time for the NLDS. With Quintana limited and Woodruff left off the roster, Milwaukee entered the postseason with a lot fewer options to fill out their rotation. Freddy Peralta was effectively the only pitcher who made a traditional start during the NLDS; he took two turns against the Cubs, allowing five runs in 9 2/3 innings while striking out 15. Priester was lined up to make a traditional start in Game 3, but he allowed four runs in the first inning and was pulled after recording just two outs.

Like the Tigers last year, the Brewers have embraced a strategy of pitching chaos due to a lack of starting options. They used 10 different relievers during the last round, with Misiorowski and Quintana providing bulk innings in the games Peralta didn’t start. Aaron Ashby and Trevor Megill were utilized as openers in front of Misiorowski, and Brewers manager Pat Murphy dug deep into his bullpen to line up the right matchups in critical situations. Combined, the Brewers relief corps threw 30 innings against the Cubs, the most of any team in that round, and put up a 1.20 ERA, the lowest of the eight teams in the Division Series:

In the best-of-seven NLCS, that strategy will be stretched to its limit. The off day between Games 1 and 2 in the NLDS allowed the Brewers to be aggressive with their bullpen usage, but they won’t have that same luxury against the Dodgers. The most immediate question is who will start Game 1. Peralta last pitched on Thursday, which means he’d be lined up to start Game 2 on normal rest. Both Priester and Quintana would be on four days rest after appearing in Game 3 last Wednesday, which means one of those two will likely take the mound to start the series against the Dodgers. The other option would be to run with a full bullpen game in Game 1 and hope that Peralta can provide length in Game 2 before the travel day affords some rest ahead of the three-game set in Los Angeles. Misiorowski should be rested enough to make a bulk relief appearance in Game 3, which would also set him up to be used in a potential Game 7 if it comes to that.

For the Dodgers, the rotation plan is a lot more straightforward. They’ve got four phenomenal starters in Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Blake Snell, Tyler Glasnow, and Shohei Ohtani, and they leaned on them heavily during the NLDS. Those four guys threw a combined 22 innings against the Phillies while posting a 2.45 ERA and a 2.54 FIP. Los Angeles will go with Snell to start Game 1 and Yamamoto in Game 2, which would give him his regular five days of rest before a potential start in Game 6.

Ohtani throws a little wrinkle in things for Games 3 and 4, as well as for a potential Game 7. As of Sunday night, according to Fabian Ardaya of The Athletic, the Dodgers had committed to pitching Ohtani “at some point” in the NLCS, though they had not yet announced whether he’d get the ball in Game 3 or Game 4 back in Los Angeles. During the first two rounds, the Dodgers scheduled Ohtani’s starts for games before an off day, so he would have a day to recover before DHing. Manager Dave Roberts said the team isn’t going to be doing that for the NLCS, and that Ohtani would be in the lineup as the DH the game after he pitches, no matter what. All but two of Ohtani’s 15 starts this season, including Game 1 of the NLDS against the Phillies, have come on six or more days of rest, and none since the end of June, when he was only throwing one or two innings while coming back from elbow reconstruction surgery. The starter for Game 7 becomes a little murkier if Ohtani pitches in Game 3; typically, that would line him up to start the final game, but he’d be pitching on just four days of rest, something he hasn’t done this year. Game 7 would be an all-hands-on-deck situation anyway, so it’s possible Ohtani and Glasnow could combine to cover most of the innings in that winner-take-all game. If that’s the plan, then it would make more sense to have Ohtani start Game 3 because it would give him an extra day to recover than if he were to start Game 4 and still be needed for Game 7.

Can the Dodgers’ bullpen contain the Brewers’ offense?

Beyond the starting unit’s quality, the big reason the Dodgers relied so heavily on their rotation during the first two rounds of the playoffs is because their bullpen has really struggled over the last month. In September, Dodgers relievers posted a 4.90 ERA, and that has jumped to a 5.75 ERA in October. Roberts has trusted just four relievers in high-leverage situations during the previous two rounds of the playoffs:

Of those four pitchers, just one has avoided allowing a run so far in October: Roki Sasaki. After a rough start to his MLB career, including a 4.72 ERA as a starter followed by a shoulder injury that sidelined him for four months, Sasaki has been a revelation in relief. His fastball has looked sharp, averaging nearly 100 mph, and he’s simplified his approach by featuring his unhittable splitter nearly half the time while ditching his slider completely. Tanner Scott was removed from the NLDS roster due to injury, so Los Angeles won’t have him as a late-inning option in this series either. Alex Vesia, Blake Treinen, and Emmet Sheehan will once again be called on to form a bridge from the Dodgers’ starters to Sasaki, which is where things could get fraught.

The Brewers’ offense excels at putting pressure on the opposing defense. They had the fifth-lowest strikeout rate in baseball this year, and they were one of the most aggressive teams on the basepaths during the regular season. They put the ball in play, force their opponents to play flawless defense, and are quick to take advantage of any mistakes in the field. During the regular season, they put up a 107 wRC+, their best mark of this window of contention that opened back in 2018. Their .145 ISO ranked just 25th overall, but it jumped up to .159 during the second half of the season, and it’s up to .175 in the postseason. They also have a knack for clutch hitting: 14 of the 22 runs they scored against the Cubs came with two outs, and they had 10 two-out, two-strike hits, including four home runs, in the NLDS.

The Dodgers aren’t an especially strong defensive team, breaking even with 0 FRV, 17th in baseball. Of particular interest this October is Will Smith. Normally able to put a damper on opposing teams’ run game, the hairline fracture in Smith’s right hand clearly affected his ability to throw in the NLDS; the Phillies stole four bases while he was behind the plate. The lingering effects of that injury were enough to keep him out of the starting lineup during the first two games against the Phillies, and if his hand is still bothering him, I’d expect the Brewers to try and put the game in motion as soon as they get runners on base.

The other factor that the Brewers use to their advantage is a deep bench that’s filled with players who can turn a late-inning at-bat into a favorable matchup. But while there will be some chess moves to make with the bottom half of the lineup, they’re confident in the production from Christian Yelich, Jackson Chourio, Brice Turang, and William Contreras at the top; that quartet combined for 21 hits, four home runs, and 11 RBI during the NLDS. That said, the other eight players who had a plate appearance during that series collected 19 hits, three home runs, and 10 RBI. One thing to monitor is the state of Chourio’s right hamstring; during Game 1 of the NLDS, he re-aggravated an injury that kept him on the IL for all of August. It wasn’t a serious enough to keep him out of the lineup in any other game during the series, but his ability to run full speed was clearly compromised.

Will Shohei Ohtani break out of his slump?

For the Dodgers, the biggest concern for their offense is the sudden silence of Shohei Ohtani’s bat. The superstar had three hits and two home runs in the Wild Card Series against the Cincinnati Reds, but the Phillies’ cavalcade of left-handed pitchers held him to just a single hit in 20 plate appearances while striking him out nine times in the NLDS. Ohtani won’t have to worry about as many left-handed pitchers while facing the Brewers, though I’m sure he’ll see plenty of Ashby and Jared Koenig in high-leverage situations.

Mookie Betts, Teoscar Hernández, and Tommy Edman picked up the slack for the Dodgers against Philadelphia, combining for four hits apiece, two home runs, and six RBI; postseason hero Enrique Hernández chipped in with three hits and three RBI of his own. Including their series win over the Reds, the team has a 108 wRC+ in the postseason so far, with 31 runs in six games.

Even with one of their best bats mired in a slump, the Dodgers’ lineup has so many other incredible hitters that they can still pound an opposing team without skipping a beat. They had the second best wRC+ in baseball during the regular season, with a lineup that features a trio of former MVPs and a strong supporting cast. Although Freddie Freeman and Max Muncy didn’t slump as hard as Ohtani against the Phillies, I’m sure they will be glad to see fewer left-handed pitchers in this series. And even though Smith might not be 100%, his return lengthened the lineup by pushing Ben Rortvedt to the bench. Ohtani is still a critical piece of the offense — Roberts went so far as to say that the team won’t win the World Series without better production from him — but there are so many other ways the Dodgers can beat you.

The Projection

On paper, it would seem like the Dodgers’ star power and extensive postseason experience would give them the upper hand over the Brewers. Still, the Brew Crew is a lot more than the sum of their parts, which will make this series a fascinating battle between two very different ballclubs.