The Guardians made it past the White Sox and now they must deal with Tampa Bay. They will not hav3e to face Shane McClanahan who is out for the remainder of the post season.
Here is what happens if a team loses a player who rejected a Qualifying Offer.
Photo credit: Rex Fregosi
If there was a single game and I had to bet the farm on the outcome I think I would currently pick Yamamoto to be the starter.
Have to figure he gets the Dodgers 2 wins in this series if it goes that long. So winning one of the non-Yamamoto starts was huge for the Brewers. They basically need to win 4 of the 5 games he does not start.
If they happen to somehow pull out a W in one of his starts, that would be a huge swing in their odds of pulling this off.
That was a big win for the Brewers given that Misiorowski was unable to get out of the 4th inning, 2nd time this post season. He is their clear No.1 and Brewers need to cash in on those starts to have a chance.
Not only that, the Brewers beat Skubal who was brought over specifically for the playoffs.
In the case of Skuba’s failure, the Dodgers can still roll out Yamamoto, Snell and Glasnow where Milwaukee’s remaining starters are less playoff hardened. Henderson, Gasser, ?? and ??. Lately May and Harrison have been powder kegs. Especially Harrison. Brewers need Miz to step up and act like the Cy Young he is.
5th inning*
thanks for the correction, 5th
2 pm central time starting time for a marquee playoff game with a team from the west coast is such a stupid move.
the Rams play at 530
MLB isn’t going to put that marquee matchup in the same time slot, and they aren’t going to make Rams/Dodgers fans choose which game to watch
2pm PDT
I love it, afternoon games are a thing of beauty
Man. I still really hate the Doyers. On the flip side, I like both AL Teams and the Brewers. If the Brewers win the NL series then the World Series will just be a big old funfest for me. I think I’d like the Brewers to win… but Rays would be awesome too. And hey, Cleveland has been doing it right for a long time, they deserve some cake, plus Jo….
Come on Brewers… just beat the Blue Chew and make everything roses for me.
Yes – can’t ignore the Indians too. They’ve been good at this for a while. I just want the Rays because of how much they are doing it this year. They do go against the analytical wisdom – although the analytical people will say what they are doing makes sense. Why? Because they will always search for analytical justification. The amount of times they have been bunted would have been blasphemy on every analysts spreadsheet a few years ago. Now, well of course it makes sense.
And don’t get me wrong – I have a huge belief in analytics. But – I can also see how many stats are flawed and can be fallacious arguments when you peel everything back.
People who say RBI’s don’t matter is the biggest fraud of them all and shows they were never on the field. They assume a guy hitting a ground ball to second to score a runner is giving up an out. He’s trying to get the runner in – and if it was an out – he did his job. But they forget – a guy doing that gets hits too. There’s not a manager in baseball – unless we’re down to a needing more runs and few outs – who wouldn’t cheer getting the run in.
I don’t think the Rays are spinning a wheel or throwing darts to determine when to bunt. I’m pretty sure they have crunched the numbers a dozen different ways. Since they have the lowest strikeout total in all of MLB they may have more opportunities to be successful with the next batter up.
The Rays aren’t going against analytical wisdom. Neither did the Brewers. They used the data to determine when to bunt and then happened to be successful afterwards. This might work again. Or it might not. The better your hitters the better your chances.
Possible answer to 3B is going to a free agent this off-season.
All-Star-3B
Because he loved playing baseball so much it’s going to be very hard for Rendon not to retire.
I would make Puig and Bauer team co-captains before I’d take back Rendon.
No love for Wander Franco?
Tri-captains it is.
How about a AS 1B?
7 hrs and 49 RBIs doesn’t cut it
Nolan gets a lot of crap for not hitting homers
He missed 50+ games and had the same of better WAR than: Eldridge, Christian Walker, Jacob Burger, Sal Stewart (might be ML ROY), Michael Busch, Tork, Goldy. And that’s just among 1st basemen.
He also had a higher/same WAR as: Acuna, Albies, Lindor, Chisholm, Basallo, amongst others
All good, but I believe that says a lot more about the state of 1B than it does about Nolan.
The Angels have multiple deep, cavernous holes. 1st base is NOT one of them.
I was only commenting on the comment above not saying what we should do with Nolan. I agree. Eventually I would like to see more production from 1st base but for now, he’s cheap and our 4th best hitter.
Actually, one of only 4 hitters worth playing.
That’s pretty mean spirited of you…I like it.
The guy who wrote that story knows his stuff, ha ha.
Brewers definitely who I’m pulling for. They are so fun to watch. Just loved how they manufactured that run against an ace. That’s how the game should be played. “But no, you should never bunt. That’s what the statistics say.”
They remind me a bit of a certain 2002 team….
The statistics don’t say that you should never bunt. They tell you whether or not it’s a meaningful risk. When run scoring is higher, bunting is not a good risk because it gives up an out and single runs don’t have as much value. In a low scoring environment, like a playoff game with great pitching, base stealing and bunting have great value because individual runs have great value.
Made sense that there was a lot of base stealing in the 80s because run scoring was depressed, not so much in the 90s.
I do agree that often when you move from the regular season to the post season, the environment may be quite different and teams need to adjust. The Brewers and the Rays are two teams that are well designed to compete in low scoring games.
If I get a vote, and I won’t, I hope the next manager teaches and preaches fundamentals. That would include how to bunt. This past year, there was no reason to ask anyone past Heineman to bunt. They looked like they were trying to skewer the ball onto a baseball bat. That being said, YES, it is mostly in late innings in a close game to advance the runner(s) to improve the chance of scoring.
Is Washington coming back?
I’ll go one further. I hope the new baseball operations people establish a development program that emphasizes the fundamentals from rookie ball on up.
It is too late to teach at the big league level.
I know it’s not never – but the Rays and Brewers are showing that moving runners over, hitting behind runners, bunting, RBI’s for the team and stealing bases go against the analytical status quo – which were mostly built on winning games over a season and not situational. It’s like the guys that proved mathematically that a football team should never punt if you look at it holistically. What a clown stat.
This game isn’t played holistically – it’s played pitch-to-pitch, situation-to-situation, feel-to-feel. It will be so good for baseball if the Brewers and Rays get there – because we might start seeing more of it instead of the double or bomb or nothing mentallity.
The Dodgers had more hits, more walks, and lost. And I friggen love it.
Because the Brewers can hit the ball although the team strikeout total was about league average. And the Rays were 200 strikeouts less than the Brewers (Rays struck out less than any team in MLB).
What you don’t do is bunt with one out and a man on first and your next two batters have 30% strikeout rates. This is the kind of thing Suzuki would do. I don’t think it does any good to bunt if your team can’t hit the ball.
when did Suzuki put on a bunt with 1 out??
He may not have, I don’t recall. But I think it is something he would do. I think I recall a bunt and then the next hitter was Neto. And while Zach has hit near .300 with RISP, I still wouldn’t bunt in front of him.
so you’re projecting. Got it.
The bunt has always been a zero out play unless a squeeze.
eh, I think the entire SAC and sb thing is a little overblown tbh. Yes, it worked out last night.
But the Brewers have a total of 5 sb’s this postseason, only 1 of which has scored in the situation you’re referring to.
And they have 4 SAC bunts, only 1 of which scored in the referred fashion.
The league average on successful bunts this season was 28 per team. The Rays had 94. Brewers were second with 66. DBacks had 54. They had double or more than any other team. This is a huge disparity. I think you have to go back 25 years to find a team that had as much success with bunts as the Rays.
that’s the regular season.
It’s also counterintuitive to the analytics argument, as the Rays and Brewers are amongst the most analytically driven teams
It goes against the perception of what stats matter argument for sure. And I’ve said, I think the Rays and Brewers have their own set of analytics that went against the crowd analytics mentality and are not openly shared. I think we are seeing those paradigm shifting analytics play out for sure. Do I think Pat Murphy is looking over at Wilber on his iPad and asking if the numbers say he should bunt now? No. Not at all.
The Brewers and Rays are both built around run prevention. Both have rock solid bullpens they expect to hold leads.
Those clubs getting 1 run in the last third of the game is different than the Angels getting 1 run. Or most teams, really.
I imagine that plays into their thinking.
Absolutely. If you know the game is going to be low scoring, single runs are big.
Way less sac bunt opportunities in the post season. Over 8 hits per game in regular season. Something like 5.5 hits per game in the post season. That’s what happens when you face mostly 1’s and 2’s.
I agree, it’s about situational awareness.
It is very frustrating in this day and age to watch a game and know that a ground ball to 2B scores a run and they don’t do it.
