Offseason Notebook - October 25
The World Series begins and the Mets prepare to open their checkbook
I have re-branded this series to be the “Offseason Notebook”, and producer Lee put together a graphic for me because he was appalled at my clip art abomination last time.
For those of you following along with the NFL Showdown stuff - after it was announced that Puka Nacua would play, I pulled all of my entries out. So there’s no update to the tracker once again. I had no idea how that game was going to go with that news, so I bailed.
We have made it to World Series game one. It’s Gerrit Cole vs. Jack Flaherty in Los Angeles at 8:08 pm Eastern. The most interesting question of the night is this: will I be able to stay awake? And if I am, will it be worth it? Every Saturday and Sunday, I commit to getting up early with the kids and letting my wife sleep in. So my wake time is fixed. Every minute I stay up watching the game is one less minute I sleep. But I think I’ll give it a go. The game plan will be to avoid alcohol to really make those six hours of sleep count. But you probably do not care at all.
Let’s take a look at both pitchers for this game. Here’s the regular season vs. postseason pitch data for Gerrit Cole.
Cole hasn’t changed the approach much. He’s thrown the fastball and curveball slightly harder in the postseason. It will be interesting to see if there’s any more juice tonight with all of the World Series adrenaline kicking.
This will be his second World Series (2019, when the Astros lost to the Nationals in seven games). He won one and lost one in that series and threw 14 innings with 15 strikeouts and six runs allowed (3.86 ERA).
His approach to lefties and righties is more similar to that of most pitchers.
Pitch | vs RHB | vs. LHB
FF | 45% | 47%
SL | 21% | 11%
FC | 18% | 16%
CU | 16% | 20%
CH | 1% | 6%
It’s a pretty scary idea to throw Shohei Ohtani a four-seam fastball with your right hand. Ohtani slugged .690 off of right-handed four-seamers in the regular season with a 73% Contact% and a 28% Brl%.
It’s extra bad news for Cole because Ohtani generated a .472 xwOBA against changeups and a .589 mark against sliders. Cole doesn’t have any good options.
Ohtani has a 21% BB% this postseason and has seen just 38% of pitches against him be in the strike zone. That’s the lowest zone rate by far in the postseason if we look at hitters who have seen at least 150 pitches.
If you just can’t help yourself but to get some betting action on this game, I’d take Ohtani Over 0.5 Walks (-130) and Ohtani over 0.5 steals (+180) on DraftKings. To the best of the Yankees’ ability, they’re not going to let him beat them early on with right-handed Betts on deck and a non-healthy Freeman in the hole.
Cole has his work cut out for him. Here are the regular season marks on the Dodgers’ lineup against the pitch types Cole throws (right-handed four-seamers, curveballs, cutters, and changeups):
Here’s the data for Jack Flaherty:
We have seen him losing a little bit of velocity this postseason. That’s still anchored by an early-season velocity bump that didn’t hold up. Here’s his fastball velo by outing from the regular season:
He has opted for the curveball more than the slider this postseason, basically reversing those two pitch usages. He also attacks righties and lefties similarly:
Pitch | vs RHB | vs. LHB
FF | 44% | 42%
SL | 29% | 27%
CU | 18% | 24%
SI | 4% | 1%
CH | 0% | 5%
For those of you doing the math, there’s 4% null usage against righties - so we don’t quite get to 100%. I’m not sure where that came from, but Statcast tracking must have failed for one of his starts or something.
I don’t personally believe in reverse splits. I think if any pitcher threw enough innings, you would see all of them do better against batters of the same hand. I think that stuff is just a product of small samples.
It’s interesting that Flaherty still throws the slider 27% of the time to lefties. He’s confident in the pitch, and it worked just fine in the regular season as lefties put up a .251 xwOBA off the pitch with a very high 19% SwStr%. It’s not a traditional slider, apparently.
Here are the regular season marks for the Yankees against right-handed four-seamers, sliders, and curveballs:
The key to beating the Yankees is somehow keeping that killer trio of Soto + Judge + Stanton off the board. There are not a ton of threatening hitters after them (although there aren’t many slouches either), but you can’t walk all three guys. Stanton being healthy and threatening this postseason has really changed things. You have to attack Soto and Judge; you really don’t have much of a choice.
Juan Soto is seeing a 49% zone rate this postseason, which is UP from 46.5% in the regular season.
Those three have combined for a .265/.364/.622 slash line with ten homers in 118 postseason plate appearances (a homer every 11.8 PAs). Give me Juan Soto over 1.5 total bases (+125) and Aaron Judge over 0.5 RBI (+115). If you’re going to pitch to Soto, he’s probably going to get you for extra bases, and that sets Judge up nicely to drive him in. You’re not walking Judge with a man on base with Stanton behind him.
All of these bet recommendations are on the stud hitters being stud hitters, so over 8.5 (-115) makes sense, along with it, if you are really buying what I’m selling.
I didn’t really mean to get a full-on game preview done here, but there you have it. Hopefully that somehow enhances your viewing experience tonight.
I’m thinking about getting my projector out for the game. I have a big screen that I hang up over my garage door and we watch stuff on the driveway. It’s going to be like 50 degrees, though… I’m guessing my wife would leave me out there by myself in those temperatures. Not sure I’m willing to have my neighbors seeing me sitting out there alone like I’m Steven freaking Glansberg.
Some of the other MLB “news” that hit this week is that the Mets are going to spend a bunch of money on their rotation this offseason. Shocker!
The big names are Corbin Burnes and Max Fried. Fried is from Los Angeles, so I’d be thinking he’ll either re-sign with Atlanta or try to get in some Dodger blue or end up with San Diego or somewhere close. I guess Burnes is from California too, so that same thing could apply… but Fried strikes me more as a California guy. Very pretty, very left-handed, you know? My money is on the Mets landing Burnes before Christmas.
The other thing I’m personally hyped for today is a parent-teacher conference for my daughter. She’s in Kindergarten now and just dominates. She’s so nice and sweet and smart. We’ve heard nothing but people singing her praise, and that won’t change today. And that means I will be praised by association. And I like to be praised. Shout out to me.
There’s another entry in the notebook!