2016 MLB thread. THE CUBS HAVE BROKEN THE CURSE! Chicago Cubs are your 2016 World Series champions

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I'm not a fan of bringing starters out of the bullpen. Look at Yordano against Oakland. Pedro against the Yankees. To me, it doesn't work enough to risk it.
 
When your bullpen is consistently ******** the bed though, it should be something that should be an option. I'm not a fan of shutting a door because it hasn't worked before, you know? Especially with the season on the line on the road, I'm going out with Strasburg not Aaron Barrett or Tyler Clippard or Storen who fails in the playoffs. Yost has a dominant bullpen and didn't use it. He was lucky as hell :lol: he's still one of the worst managers in the majors. Yost and Hurdle have been saved the last two years because their teams have performed in spite of them.
 
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I'd cop if I was a Royals fan.
 
JohnnyRedStorm said:
I'm not a fan of bringing starters out of the bullpen. Look at Yordano against Oakland. Pedro against the Yankees. To me, it doesn't work enough to risk it.
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Proshares said:
When your bullpen is consistently ******** the bed though, it should be something that should be an option. I'm not a fan of shutting a door because it hasn't worked before, you know? Especially with the season on the line on the road, I'm going out with Strasburg not Aaron Barrett or Tyler Clippard or Storen who fails in the playoffs. Yost has a dominant bullpen and didn't use it. He was lucky as hell :lol: he's still one of the worst managers in the majors. Yost and Hurdle have been saved the last two years because their teams have performed in spite of them.
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Pro hit the nail on the head. It was a win or go home situation for the Nats. You are putting the balance of your season in the hands of Barrett/Soriano? While he's not responsible for the silent bats, a good chunk of this postseason failure of the Nats falls on the shoulders of Matt Williams for being inflexible. He had his mind set as far as what he was going to do with the bullpen before the first pitch. That's crazy. He has a script and sticks to it, REGARDLESS of the situation. Recipe for disaster, IMO.
 
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Gotta be flexible, but meh, what happens if Strasburg comes in and implodes? I understand going with your biggest arm, but meh.
 
JohnnyRedStorm said:
Gotta be flexible, but meh, what happens if Strasburg comes in and implodes? I understand going with your biggest arm, but meh.
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It really just comes down to how unreliable that trio of Clippard/Storen/Soriano are and have been in post season play. Especially with how uneasy you should be with the rest of that pen. When Clippard/Storen pitched Monday, that signaled to me that you gotta be willing to go to Strasburg. You win, Zimm is on full rest for Game 5 and that trio is at least fully rested.
 
All 3 of the Nats loses were decided by one run. 3 of the 4 players at the top of the order went 4/54. So even with all the bats disappearing we stilkept it close. Sometimes things just don't go your way. Go Orioles.
 
JohnnyRedStorm said:
Gotta be flexible, but meh, what happens if Strasburg comes in and implodes? I understand going with your biggest arm, but meh.
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Much easier pill to swallow than having to answer questions about Barrett/Soriano/or even Storen, for that matter.

Pitch Stras, live another day....have Zimmermann on the mound for game 5.
 
you just dont bet against the giants or cards when playoffs roll around. i dont care who is on their roster, these teams find ways to get clutch performances
 
10 crucial matchups in the ALCS, NLCS.

ST. LOUIS -- Ten key matchups in the AL and NL Championship Series that begin Friday and Saturday, respectively:

1. The Orioles vs. the Kansas City running game: This is like a steel-cage match within the main event. The Royals have run aggressively in the postseason, with 12 stolen bases in 13 attempts, including seven in their wild-card game against Oakland. Terrance Gore and Jarrod Dyson are setting new standards for brazenness.

But the Orioles are excellent at controlling the running game, and with the layoff before the start of the ALCS on Friday, you can bet O's manager Buck Showalter and his staff are preparing for the Royals' roadrunners. They already have some great countermeasures in place, such as:

• Chris Tillman: Nobody steals against him because he delivers his pitches to the plate so quickly. Opponents have tried to steal 13 times on him over the past two years and have been successful twice. To repeat, that's two steals in 13 attempts.

• Caleb Joseph: The catcher has a great arm, and during the season he threw out 23 of 57 baserunners.

• Wei-Yin Chen: He has allowed just nine steals (in 13 tries) over the past two years.

The Royals' best chances may come against the Baltimore bullpen, using Gore and Dyson. Teams try to run on Darren O'Day because of his unconventional delivery (10 steals in 15 attempts over the past two seasons), and there have been only six attempts over the past two years against Andrew Miller (with four steals).

No team stole more bases than the Royals did during the regular season, while only seven teams allowed fewer steals than Baltimore. And if you take Ubaldo Jimenez, who allowed 19 steals in 2014, out of the equation, you could make a case that the Orioles were the best in the AL at slowing opponents … other than Kansas City.

Shutting down the running game will be key, writes Eduardo Encina.

2. The Cardinals' zombie storm vs. the Giants' cockroach swarm: These two teams have accounted for the past four National League championships (with three World Series titles) and seem impossible to eradicate; they just keep coming at you. Well, now they have to go at each other, as they did in the 2012 playoffs, when the Giants came back from a 3-games-to-1 series deficit to beat the Cardinals.

Most postseason wins, past 5 seasons
Cardinals 30
Giants 26
Rangers 18
Tigers 17
Red Sox 11
Giants catcher Buster Posey is 27 years old and has already played in 36 postseason games. Cardinals catcher Yadier Molina has played in 84 postseason games. These two teams, the two managers, the players, they've been there and done that many times, so you will be hearing a lot about clubhouse culture and environments for success over the next 10 days … and it will all be true.

3. Adam Wainwright vs. whatever he's feeling: The Cardinals aren't saying exactly what's going on with their perennial Cy Young candidate, but something is. That's at least part of the reason that manager Mike Matheny didn't consider bringing him back to pitch Game 4 against Clayton Kershaw on short rest. In fact, Matheny hadn't even committed to start Wainwright for Game 5 if the Dodgers had won Tuesday to extend the series.

Maybe the respite will help; if Wainwright starts Game 1 of the NLCS, he'll have had seven days between starts, and at this stage of October, he has three or four starts remaining, at most.

For now, the plan is for Wainwright to pitch in Game 1 against the Giants, Derrick Goold writes, but the Cardinals are prepared to use Lance Lynn instead. From his story:
"Just making sure that Waino feels right," Matheny said. "We've got two guys on regular rest; it wouldn't be a stretch to have either one of them go. There's no question that Waino has been fighting it. I haven't made that a secret and neither has he. It's all going to come down to how he feels. The likelihood of him saying 'I can't go' is very slim. But it is a possibility that something might not feel right."

Wainwright indicated he did not expect any issue and would start Saturday.

4. Nelson Cruz vs. the Royals' pitching staff: He is the unlikeliest of postseason superstars, having not established himself in the majors as an everyday player until he was 29 years old. But Cruz has dominated October baseball since his first taste of it in 2010, with 16 homers and a 1.059 OPS in 149 plate appearances. He went 6-for-12 with two homers in the ALDS against the Tigers, and the Royals need to neutralize him in this series.

Worth noting: Cruz's numbers against Jason Vargas are staggering: four homers among 10 hits in 30 at-bats, with seven walks.

5. The dueling-banjo Orioles and Royals defenses: The Orioles' defense isn't as good as it would be with Manny Machado, Chris Davis and Matt Wieters, but it's still excellent, probably the best in the majors … other than what the Royals are throwing out there, with Alex Gordon and Lorenzo Cain and Salvador Perez et al. No middle infielder throws the ball better than the Orioles' Jonathan Schoop, and Royals shortstop Alcides Escobar is capable of the spectacular. Also, Steve Pearce has played excellent first base for the Orioles.

6. Adam Jones vs. his desire to swing: He is ultra-aggressive, and he knows that opposing pitchers know this. Going into the postseason, he spoke of taking what the pitchers provide rather than being too aggressive. Through the work of advance scouts, the Royals will undoubtedly drill this into the heads of their pitchers: Make him make you throw strikes, because he might swing at stuff outside the strike zone.

Jones went 2-for-11 against the Tigers, and in his two postseasons so far, he is 4-for-37 with 10 strikeouts. But through repetition, Jones may be gaining comfort.

[+] EnlargeMatt Carpenter
Harry How/Getty Images
Matt Carpenter hit .375 with three homers and seven RBIs in the NLDS against the Dodgers.
7. Matt Carpenter vs. whatever the Giants try: The Dodgers kept looking for ways to get Carpenter out, whether it was a Cy Young Award winner like Kershaw or a matchup lefty like J.P. Howell, and nothing worked. Matheny and some of the Dodgers players talked about Carpenter's ability to focus in moments of greater intensity, such as the extended at-bats he has had against Kershaw the past couple of postseasons. The greater the stress, it seems, the better he performs, and now it's up to the Giants to try to deal with that.

The Giants' starters know what Carpenter can do. He is 3-for-5 with a couple of doubles in his career against Madison Bumgarner, 1-for-3 against Jake Peavy in the postseason, 2-for-3 against Tim Hudson and 5-for-10 against Ryan Vogelsong.

8. The new and improved Eric Hosmer vs. the Orioles' lefties: When Hosmer broke into the big leagues, rival evaluators loved him, and they pictured him being a hitter who generated 25-30 homers. But for Hosmer, that sort of power went away … until now. It was as if his homer off the Angels' Hector Santiago in Game 3 of the Division Series, a monster shot to left-center field over one of the largest outfields in the majors, was a reintroduction. Hosmer has found his loose, powerful swing, and so far in the postseason he has seven hits in 14 at-bats, with a double, triple and a couple of homers.

During the regular season, his power was mitigated by left-handers; Hosmer had just two homers in 148 at-bats against lefties. It figures that Showalter will run his parade of lefties against Hosmer in the late innings, from Brian Matusz to Miller to Zach Britton. But this is a different Hosmer, a different beast altogether, the player everybody has been waiting for.

Oh, and Hosmer picked up a bar tab the other day, by the way.

9. Hudson vs. age: The Giants' 39-year-old right-hander has accomplished a lot in his career, but he never has been part of a championship dogpile, and he's pushing through some physical challenges now to get there. Near the end of the season, he battled a hip problem, but in his past two starts (against the Dodgers and the Nationals), he was really good, keeping the ball down, walking one and striking out 12 in 12 2/3 innings. The Giants have the option of buying an extra day of rest for Hudson between starts by lining him up for Games 2 and 6 of this series.

10. Matt Holliday vs. Hunter Strickland: The Cardinals left fielder is one of the strongest players in the game, capable of launching a fastball, and Strickland, who has become Bruce Bochy's newest toy, throws really hard, with an average fastball velocity of 98.1 mph. There will be a big moment in this series when Bochy will call on Strickland to challenge Holliday; everybody will know what the pitch will be, but nobody knows what will happen next. It should be fun.

Cardinals-Dodgers series

The challenge in front of Kershaw now is like someone building a house with a deck of cards only to see it fall repeatedly on the last card. Kershaw will win many more regular-season games and awards, and he may start more All-Star Games. His standing as the best pitcher in the game is rock-solid.

But that last step, that 52nd card, has eluded him. Now he must go through the long process of working toward his next opportunity, and there will be excruciating moments along the way. He might want to call John Elway, who was one of the NFL's most prolific passers and set records, but waited many frustrating years for his championship.

Clayton Kershaw in 2014 Division Series, by inning
Statistic 1st-6th 7th+
Swing rate 47% 65%
Opp. BA .079 .818
Hard-hit balls 3 6
GB-LD* 10-2 2-5
*Ground balls to line drives

From Elias: During the regular season, Kershaw was 15-0 with a 0.89 ERA in 15 starts in which he had a two-run lead or better. That was the best ERA in that scenario (Corey Kluber was next at 1.08). And of course, in the Cardinals-Dodgers series, he blew leads of two runs or more in Games 1 and 4.

The Cardinals knew that Matt Adams would deliver, writes Bernie Miklasz. They are taking the next step, Derrick Goold writes. Adams made a little leap.

To paraphrase the immortal words of Pedro Martinez: The Cardinals are Clayton Kershaw's daddy. The Cardinals solved him again, writes Tyler Kepner.

So much for the Freeway Series, writes David Wharton. There's a lot of blame to go around for the Dodgers' debacle, writes Bill Plaschke.

Kershaw was knocked out again, writes Dylan Hernandez, and now the Dodgers have some tough choices going forward, writes Mark Saxon.

Giants-Nationals series

The Giants held on, writes Henry Schulman. There is a feeling of destiny back at AT&T Park, writes Bruce Jenkins. Hunter Pence's catch was a signature play, writes Ann Killion. The Giants are in their postseason glory, writes Mark Purdy.

Lowest postseason ERA in MLB history (minimum 5 starts)
Sandy Koufax 0.95 ERA
Christy Mathewson 1.06 ERA
Ryan Vogelsong* 1.19 ERA
*4 ER allowed in 30 1/3 postseason innings

Bumgarner had a five-beer celebration.

The Nationals needed urgency and they got orthodoxy, writes Adam Kilgore. Washington is still no match for the NL elite, writes Thomas Boswell.

In defeat, this much was established: Bryce Harper likes to hit in October.

More on the Orioles-Royals series

The Orioles and Royals are set to meet in a showdown that defies logic.

Standing pat at the trade deadline proved crucial, writes Vahe Gregorian.

Final words

Josh Hamilton isn't particularly thrilled about the fan reaction he received.

Missed this last week: Josh Reddick hopes the Athletics don't tear the team apart.

Moves, deals and decisions

1. Josh Beckett is retiring. He had a great career.

2. The Braves have continued their front-office rebuild.

3. The Rangers continue to talk with managerial candidates.

4. Twins pitching coach Rick Anderson assumed he was fired when manager Ron Gardenhire was fired. But that is not the case.

5. Bill Mueller resigned as the Cubs' hitting coach after Mike Brumley was fired.

NL East

• A cartoon assessment of the Phillies.

NL Central

• Moving forward, the Pirates are solid at shortstop.

• The Pirates are wary of their guys playing a full winter-ball season.

• The Cardinals are the best franchise in baseball, writes Ken Davidoff.

• John Fay has some recommendations for the Reds.

NL West

• The Diamondbacks appear to have a lot of trade options.

AL East

• A Red Sox prospect had an off season.

AL Central

• Should the Indians sign Victor Martinez?

• The Tigers' bullpen should get some
injured guys back in 2015, which should provide an easy boost.

Lastly

• Orioles season-ticket holders are looking for a postseason sale replay.

• The Astros' television case continues.

• City Hall's perk at Petco may end.

And today will be better than yesterday.

Let’s Take Check Swings Away From Home Plate Umpires.

Of late, Major League Baseball has been fairly aggressive in adopting new rules to attempt to improve the game. We have instant replay now, at least for some plays and some calls. Runners aren’t allowed to run over catchers at home plate anymore. The league is even experimenting with a pitch clock in the Arizona Fall League, which could eventually lead to a reduction in the amount of time that pitchers are allowed to stand around doing nothing. The game is great, but it can still be improved upon, and I’m glad to see MLB working to try and continually make it better.

And after what we’ve seen in the playoffs over the last week, I think it’s time for Major League Baseball to consider another rule change. It’s time to officially take check-swing strike calls away from the home plate umpire.

Last night, we saw an egregious example of why this call just doesn’t need to be made by the guy behind the plate. In the 9th inning, Santiago Casilla threw a 1-2 curveball to Ian Desmond. Desmond did this.

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Hunter Wendelstedt rang Desmond up, ending the at-bat, and putting the Nationals one out away from elimination. Desmond, predictably, reacted, because that’s a very borderline check-swing to get called out on, but also, because Wendelstedt didn’t even bother to ask the first base umpire for assistance on the call. Maybe you think that Desmond swung, but there is no way to think that the swing is so clear cut that the home plate umpire should make that determination without even checking down to first base.

This isn’t the first time this has happened in the postseason either. Last week, Paul Nauert decided to ring up Erick Aybar on this swing.

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Like with Desmond, Aybar was batting with his team down a run in their last at-bat, and Nauert’s call struck him out on a swing that does not look like a swing. Here is Mike Scioscia‘s reaction to the call.

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Check swing decisions are about as subjective as anything in baseball gets, but again, how do you not at least check with the third base umpire before making that call? Is there any way to defend the position that Aybar so clearly swung that the home plate umpire could make that call without assistance?

I don’t think so, and I’m not sure home plate umpires need to be making these calls to begin with. On nearly every inconclusive check swing, it is standard operating procedure to let the base umpire make the decision anyway, so why not just codify that into the rules? Why give the home plate umpire the right to insert himself into the decision whenever he likes, when it is widely accepted that the base umpires have the better angle and are in a better position to make the swing-or-not determination?

The appeal to the base umpire is already in practice on a vast majority of check swings anyway, so officially giving this decision to the umpire down the opposite line from the batter wouldn’t slow the game down in any appreciable way. It takes a second or two for the base umpire to make the decision, and when a home plate umpire rings up a batter on a check-swing strike, we usually get an argument at the plate that lasts longer anyway.

MLB brings in two extra umpires for the postseason to try and make sure they have as many angles as possible covered for big games. We have instant replay now, as the league is trying to cut down on the number of times human error contributes significantly to the outcome of a game. There just isn’t any real reason why home plate umpires need to be making check swing decisions in the 2014 postseason, and I’m not sure I can think of a reason why they ever really need to make one.

Maybe Aybar and Desmond both would have been called out by the base umpire as well. We don’t know, because neither Hunter Wendelstedt or Paul Nauert asked for help, but it’s possible, and as long as we have human beings subjectively deciding whether a batter crossed some invisible line of demarcation, we’re going to have check-swing controversies.

But on essentially every other play in baseball, the umpire with the best angle owns the right to make the call. The home plate umpire does not have the best angle to determine whether a check swing went too far or not. He shouldn’t have the right to take that call away from the base umpire whenever he wants. Let’s officially make this the base umpire’s call. It’s what he’s there for.

How Did That Dodger Bullpen Get So Bad?

In Game 1 of the NLDS, Don Mattingly left in Clayton Kershaw to absorb a beating in part because he didn’t trust his bullpen. In Game 2, he lifted Zack Greinke, only to watch veteran J.P. Howell give a lead away. In Game 3, he rode Hyun-jin Ryu as far as he felt was realistic (given that Ryu had missed weeks with a shoulder injury), then saw Scott Elbert kick it away. In Game 4, a short-rest Kershaw was outstanding up until the moment he wasn’t, with Mattingly trying to push Kershaw through that seventh inning in order to turn it over to Kenley Jansen.

Each of these decisions were defensible in some way. And each one blew up in Mattingly’s face. The manager is getting pummeled for that, because that’s how sports work, and there’s a non-zero chance he doesn’t survive the winter, fairly or not. But the focus on Mattingly’s choices perhaps overlooks a more crucial problem: Man, how bad was that bullpen? How does this even happen?
Before the season, the Dodger bullpen was expected to be outstanding. Here’s a spring article that says the bullpen was “strong, stacked and ready for high expectations.” This one asks if the bullpen was “too stacked.” Another says it was a “position of strength.” At ESPN, it was judged to be a top-five collection. I point those out not to shame them — at least one is written by a friend — but to show how universal the belief was. We weren’t quite so high in our own projections, ranking them No. 12 and noting some concerns, though generally being positive, and the difference between top-five and top-12 wasn’t much.

It’s not hard to see why, anyway, because in theory, this was a bullpen overflowing with talent. Jansen had been one of baseball’s most dominant relievers for years. No one doubted Brian Wilson had been overpaid, but he’d also been outstanding in a small sample down the stretch in 2013 after recovering from Tommy John surgery (0.66 ERA / 2.02 FIP). The disappointing Brandon League and low-cost newcomer Chris Perez had few fans, but at least both had had success in the not-too-distant past.

Howell had been a reliable lefty for the team in 2013. Flame-throwing Chris Withrow had struck out hitters at Jansen-esque levels in his rookie season the year before. Paco Rodriguez‘ rookie season had ended poorly, but he’d been very productive all year before September. Youngsters Jose Dominguez, Yimi Garcia, Onelki Garcia and Pedro Baez were in the mix, as well, along with ageless veteran Jamey Wright, who had actually seemed to get better as he’d gotten older. Elbert was working his way back from injury. So was Chad Billingsley, who potentially would have fit in here if all five starters were healthy when he was ready. Paul Maholm was, too, I suppose, though more as a swingman — and he did end up making eight starts before blowing out his knee.

Here’s how that bullpen, which seemed like it would have more talent than places to put them, actually ended up: No. 26, in one of the rare times where FIP-WAR and RA9-WAR see eye-to-eye. In one or the other, they variously beat out the Tigers, Astros, Diamondbacks and Rockies, also known as “three awful teams and another well-known relief disaster.”

Perhaps most amazingly, this all happened despite the presence of Jansen, who was one of the best closers in baseball. Despite some atrocious batted-ball luck, Jansen was essentially Craig Kimbrel, walking fewer and striking out nearly as many as the celebrated Atlanta closer, and actually posting a better K%-BB%. Jansen was also the only Dodger reliever who wasn’t seen as replacement-level or worse, by FIP-WAR. (RA9-WAR at least likes Howell a bit more.)

Other than Jansen, though? Just about every other notable piece under-performed. Some of that’s to be expected, because we know how volatile relievers are, and some of it was due to injury. Withrow showed early wildness, then blew out his elbow in May. Billingsley never made it back. Onelki Garcia‘s reportedly minor off-season elbow surgery ate his entire year.

Still, just compare actual performance to Dan Szymborski’s 2014 ZiPS projections run in late December. The table below shows every Dodger reliever with at least 10 innings pitched, which really only eliminates Dominguez, who spent most of the season in Triple-A and missed time with a shoulder injury; Elbert, who pulled the rare “DFA’d in July, playoff roster in October” pairing; and expanded roster call-up Daniel Coulombe. (It also doesn’t include swingman Kevin Correia, who was acquired in an August waiver deal from Minnesota and was an absolute disaster, allowing seven homers in 24.2 innings.)

Name IP K% BB% K-BB% BABIP ERA FIP WAR
Jamey Wright 2014 68.1 17.2% 8.4% 8.8% 0.308 4.35 3.48 0.1
ZIPS 58.7 20.0% 8.8% 11.2% 0.293 3.53 3.33 0.4
Kenley Jansen 2014 65.1 37.7% 7.1% 30.6% 0.350 2.76 1.91 2.0
ZIPS 70.2 39.0% 7.7% 31.3% 0.281 1.91 1.96 1.7
Brandon League 2014 63 13.9% 9.9% 4.0% 0.319 2.57 3.40 0.1
ZIPS 60.1 15.5% 7.2% 8.3% 0.286 4.03 3.72 -0.1
J.P. Howell 2014 49 24.1% 12.6% 11.6% 0.236 2.39 3.30 0.3
ZIPS 50.2 21.2% 9.6% 11.6% 0.276 3.37 3.56 0.3
Brian Wilson 2014 48.1 24.2% 13.0% 11.2% 0.336 4.66 4.29 -0.4
ZIPS 38.3 24.3% 8.9% 15.4% 0.285 3.05 3.02 0.4
Chris Perez 2014 46.1 19.5% 12.5% 7.0% 0.256 4.27 5.07 -0.8
ZIPS 58.1 22.5% 8.3% 14.2% 0.295 4.47 4.53 -0.3
Paul Maholm 2014 27 14.4% 8.5% 5.9% 0.348 5.00 3.21 0.1
ZIPS 147.3 15.9% 6.7% 9.2% 0.285 3.91 3.94 2.0
Carlos Frias 2014 25.2 24.0% 5.8% 18.3% 0.243 4.91 3.4 0.0
ZIPS - - - - - - - -
Pedro Baez 2014 24 19.6% 5.4% 14.1% 0.197 2.63 3.88 0.0
ZIPS 61.1 14.6% 10.2% 4.4% 0.287 5.14 5.11 -0.9
Chris Withrow 2014 21.1 31.1% 20.0% 11.1% 0.214 2.95 3.79 -0.1
ZIPS 54.1 23.6% 11.2% 12.4% 0.249 3.48 3.77 0.3
Paco Rodriguez 2014 14 26.4% 7.6% 18.9% 0.324 3.86 2.92 0.1
ZIPS 41.2 27.2% 9.0% 18.2% 0.306 3.02 2.93 0.4
Yimi Garcia 2014 10 25.0% 2.8% 22.2% 0.167 1.80 4.23 -0.1
ZIPS 57.1 24.6% 9.2% 15.4% 0.288 4.24 4.11 -0.3
(Wright, Maholm and Perez’ projections were run with other teams, as they were not Dodgers yet, though it’s not likely much would have changed. Frias came from so far off the radar that he didn’t even have a projection.)

There are a lot of numbers there, probably too many, so let me sum it up for you: Jansen was just as outstanding as he was expected to be. Howell was mostly fine until an inexplicable late-season slump that continued into the playoffs. League actually turned around 2013′s disaster to become one of the National League’s preeminent ground ball machines, though an inability to miss bats or contain walks limited his utility.

Wilson, however, was a mess from the start. He landed on the disabled list in April with a sore right elbow, and he struggled with his velocity and command all season. Wright was essentially replacement-level. Perez wasn’t expected to be good, then under-performed that. Baez, a converted third baseman, showed some value, but also lost velocity down the stretch as he was put into more important situations. Rodriguez spent most of his year struggling in Triple-A. Maholm added little.

As the season went on, it became clear this was an issue and it was not getting better. But the deadline came and went without any moves. Ned Colletti was crushed for that, perhaps not unfairly, though only two valuable relievers — Joakim Soria and Andrew Miller — were actually moved, and neither came cheaply. (Soria also didn’t help Detroit much around being injured.) In retrospect, that looks like a huge mistake; however, we don’t know the deals on the table, and if it had been something like “Joc Pederson for Hector Rondon,” or whatever was actually on the table, perhaps it’s better undone. We’ll never know, and as we saw anyway, teams making big trades didn’t automatically get anywhere in October.

Ultimately, it was such an issue that in the playoffs, Elbert, who had pitched only 4.1 MLB innings in September after missing more than two seasons with elbow injuries, made the cut. So did Frias, who’d had one of the worst games in the history of baseball only a few weeks earlier when pressed into the rotation, and so did Baez, who had pitched one inning apiece in brief May and July recalls before sticking in August. Perez did not.

So: Should Mattingly have trusted this group more in October? Elbert, Baez and Howell all gave up game-changing homers, and Kershaw might have been out of both of his games before disaster struck had the options been better. We all know how dangerous the effects of a recency bias can be — just look at the seemingly bizarre decision to sit Yasiel Puig in Game 4, then use him only as a pinch-runner — but it’s also not hard to see, with Howell’s rough few weeks, why Mattingly thought he had only a single viable bullpen option.

Maybe, as Jonah Keri noted during Game 4, Jansen would have been a bold choice in the seventh inning with Kershaw in trouble. But that’s a move no manager would have made, and with this group, it’s hard to shake the feeling that it would have only delayed the inevitable disaster. Right or wrong — there’s clearly room for either interpretation — Mattingly just didn’t have a lot of choices here. There was probably never a “right button to push.”

As for next year? Well, back in January, Colin Zarzycki noted that the Dodger bullpen cost more than the entire Astros roster. I can’t say I know what Houston’s spending will be this winter, but we do know that the Dodgers will again have an expensive bullpen. Wilson (with a $10 million player option that will surely be picked up), League ($8.5 million) and Howell ($5.5 million) are all under contract, as is the arbitration-eligible Jansen, who should get a bump from his $4.3 million 2014 salary. Right there, that’s nearly $30 million, and if Ned Colletti keeps his job, that’s sure to increase when he throws money at Miller or Sergio Romo or David Robertson.

Mattingly probably did the best he could with this group. Wildly expensive finances aside, it just wasn’t enough. It’s not the only reason they’re already home — the offense didn’t exactly step up against the Cardinals — but it’s the most visible, and it’s terribly disappointing for Dodger fans.

MATT WILLIAMS AND HOW NOT TO RUN A BULLPEN.

There is so much more to managing a baseball team than what we see during the games. We only see the lineups, the batting order, and the pitching changes; we don't see the human interactions, the coaching, and all of the work that goes into keeping so many large personalities pointed in the right direction. Managing a baseball team is about a lot more than just in-game strategy.

But in-game strategy is part of the job, and on Tuesday night, Matt Williams failed at that part of the job in the most important game of his team's season. And while we cannot know what would have happened if different decisions had been made, we do know that maybe the best team in baseball just got bounced in the first round due, at least in part, to a series of decisions that strain credulity.

Let's just walk through the pivotal seventh inning. Bryce Harper had just tied the game in the top half of the inning, so the score was tied at 2-2 with the top of the Giants order coming up. The Giants No. 1 and No. 2 hitters both bat left-handed, so Williams countered with Matt Thornton, the team's only remaining left-handed reliever. Perfectly logical.

Thornton got a groundout from Gregor Blanco, then gave up a single to Joe Panik. That put the go-ahead run on base for Buster Posey, the Giants best hitter. The Giants best right-handed hitter. Here is what Buster Posey has done against left-handed pitchers in his career:

631 at-bats, 210 hits, 53 doubles, 2 triples, 32 home runs, 61 walks, 77 strikeouts.

That's a .333/.393/.578 batting line, which when you account for his home park, translates to a 168 wRC+, meaning that Posey's performance against lefties has been 68-percent better than a league-average hitter. Do you want some context for that? In 2012, when Miguel Cabrera won the Triple Crown, he had a 166 wRC+. Posey's performance against left-handers has basically been the equal of the game's most feared hitter having one of his best years.

In the seventh inning of a tied regular-season game, you probably wouldn't let Buster Posey face a left-handed reliever. To do so in an win-or-go-home playoff game defies basic reasoning. And that's exactly what Matt Williams did, sticking with Thornton against Posey, even though Thornton had just put the go-ahead run on base.

Predictably, Posey hit a line drive to center field, and the Nationals are lucky that it was hit right toward Denard Span, so Posey only got a single, and Panik only advanced to second base. So now the go-ahead run was in scoring position, with only one out, and Hunter Pence -- another quality right-handed hitter -- coming to the plate.

Williams rightfully decided that Thornton shouldn't be the guy to face Pence, and went to the bullpen to get a right-hander. But no, he didn't call on Tyler Clippard, the team's best relief pitcher, who held right-handed batters to a .126/.197/.226 line this season, even though the Giants would be almost 90-percent favorites to win the game if Panik scored and they took the lead into the top of the eighth. Preventing Panik from scoring in that inning was of the utmost importance, but Clippard wasn't called upon because he wasn't even warming up.

That's right. Not only did Williams let Posey hit against a left-handed reliever with the go-ahead run on base, he didn't even have his best reliever warming in case it didn't work. He did have rookie Aaron Barrett warming up, however, and that's who he called on to go after Hunter Pence.

Now, despite being a rookie, Aaron Barrett isn't a terrible choice to be pitching for the Nationals in the playoffs. He had a good first year in the big leagues, striking out 28 percent of the batters he faced, and more importantly, 31 percent of the right-handed batters he faced. Righties only hit .190/.277/.253 against him his year. He earned his way onto the playoff roster, and we've seen plenty of live-armed youngsters come up big out of the bullpen in the postseason before.

But Barrett has one primary flaw right now: his command isn't very good. He threw only 45 percent of his pitches in the strike zone this year, and walked 12 percent of the batters he faced. His best pitch is a strong power slider that he gets hitters to chase out of the zone, but with the go-ahead run at second base and only one out, Barrett couldn't afford to miss out of the zone and push that runner to third base with a walk. Doing so would remove the Giants' for a hit, and allow them to take the lead with simply a medium-depth fly ball.

So instead, Wilson Ramos called for Barrett to throw seven consecutive fastballs to Pence; unfortunately, only two of them were in the strike zone, and he walked Pence anyway. Because of the situation, Barrett was asked to pitch in the biggest game of his life, and do it without his best pitch. Pence's walk pushed Panik to third base, and brought up switch-hitting Pablo Sandoval.

Now, the usage of Thornton to go after Blanco and Panik meant that the team didn't have any more left-handed relievers, so Sandoval was going to bat left-handed, his much stronger side. For his career, Sandoval has a 132 wRC+ against right-handed pitchers, but just a 95 wRC+ against left-handers, and this season the split was even more extreme: 136 against RHPs and 59 against LHPs. Sandoval's biggest strength as a hitter is driving the ball against pitchers like Aaron Barrett.

Barrett, by the way, had even more severe command problems against lefties this year, since his slider is mostly ineffective against them. Forced to just pound fastballs, and without a real out-pitch to throw them, Barrett walked 15 percent of the left-handed batters he faced this year, and only struck out 22 percent. Barrett is a good right-on-right reliever when he can use his slider, but you don't really want him facing a lefty in a big situation, and you definitely don't want him facing a lefty who kills right-handed pitchers with the bases loaded. In a tie game. In the seventh inning. Of a game that ends your season if you lose.

But even after watching Barrett walk Pence, Williams stuck with his youngster. Sandoval ended up not even mattering, as Barrett's wildness led to a wild pitch that scored Panik from third, and then he uncorked another wild pitch while attempting to intentionally walk Sandoval once first base was open. That was the final straw for Williams, who removed his young right-hander from the game rather than letting him face the left-handed Brandon Belt, still with two men on base even after Posey was forced out at home trying to score on the second wild pitch.

To replace Barrett, Williams called on Rafael Soriano, who had such a poor second half that he lost his job as closer and almost didn't make the playoff roster. Soriano is basically just an older, diminished version of Barrett, a fastball-slider right-hander who doesn't do as well against lefties. And yet, even though any hit to the gap would essentially end the Nationals season, Williams brought in Soriano to face Belt.

Tyler Clippard never even warmed up that inning. Neither did Stephen Strasburg, the team's dominant starter who was available out of the bullpen, and who could have bridged the gap to get to the eighth inning if Williams was completely insistent on maintaining his regular season roles. After the game, Williams said Strasburg was available only in an emergency, but he didn't clarify why pulling his starter after four innings in an elimination game didn't qualify as an emergency.

But I can at least see an argument for why Storen or Strasburg wasn't ready to go in the seventh inning. Clippard, though, is on the roster for these exact situations: getting big outs with men on base in extremely high-leverage at-bats. It doesn't get any more high-leverage than if-this-guy-at-second-scores-our-season-is-probably-over, but Clippard simply sat and watched his less-talented teammates give up the run that would eventually decide the game.

Before the game, I suggested that the Nationals use Strasburg in a pre-planned relief role, allowing him to pitch as normally as possible out of the bullpen, and in that piece, I made this statement: "The team’s best chance to win two games is likely to maximize the percentage of innings thrown by Zimmermann, Strasburg, Clippard, and Storen."

Those four pitchers combined to throw zero pitches in Game Four, and due in part to that decision, Game Five won't even happen. The Nationals lost because Matt Thornton -- given to the team by the Yankees in exchange for only the waiver fee, as New York just didn't want him anymore -- and Aaron Barrett couldn't keep the middle of the Giants' order from scoring one run, and because Williams wasn't willing to use his best relievers to escape a jam that didn't even need to happen in the first place.

There is no parallel to this in other sports. NFL teams that trail by a touchdown don't put in their backup linebackers until their offense takes the lead again. NBA teams don't use their worst bench players in the first half, saving their good reserves for the end of the game, as long as they're winning when the fourth quarter rolls around. Baseball is the only sport where it's perfectly acceptable to lose a game because the worst players on your roster didn't create a lead for your best players to protect. Not using your best relievers in a tie game, or even down a single run -- while employing them to "save" a game where you only need to get three outs before you give up three runs -- just doesn't make sense.

As an outsider, we can't know about the internal dynamics of the clubhouse and how well Williams might or might not have handled the aspects of his job that we never see. But part of his job is also to make decisions during the games that give his team the best chance to win, and in the biggest game of his managerial career, he made a series of poor decisions that directly led to the run that eliminated his team from the postseason. The Nationals' offense didn't do Williams any favors in this series, and it's tough to advance when your team just doesn't hit. But on Tuesday night, they scored at least enough runs to earn the right to keep playing.

They didn't get that chance, though, because Matt Williams was unwilling to use his best pitchers in a tie game. In many ways, baseball is getting a lot smarter. In this particular way, baseball has a long way to go.
 
JJs07 said:
Pro hit the nail on the head. It was a win or go home situation for the Nats. You are putting the balance of your season in the hands of Barrett/Soriano? While he's not responsible for the silent bats, a good chunk of this postseason failure of the Nats falls on the shoulders of Matt Williams for being inflexible. He had his mind set as far as what he was going to do with the bullpen before the first pitch. That's crazy. He has a script and sticks to it, REGARDLESS of the situation. Recipe for disaster, IMO.
Click to expand...
Yep. His post game presser made me want to fire him on the spot. So much ********.
 
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