Wednesday, November 30, 2022

Newsletter Excerpt, November 30, 2022 -- "AL Central Notes"

 

This is a preview of the Joe Sheehan Baseball Newsletter, an e-mail newsletter about all things baseball, featuring analysis and opinion about the game on and off the field from the perspective of the informed outsider. Joe Sheehan is a founding member of Baseball Prospectus and has been a contributor to Sports Illustrated and Baseball America. He has been writing about baseball for 25 years.

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"The real key, though, won’t be found in San Diego next week, but in Chicago next summer. That vaunted Sox core combined unavailability with underperformance in a brutal fashion. Only Jose Abreu played in 140 games, only Abreu, Andrew Vaughn, and AJ Pollock qualified for the batting title. Yasmani Grandal and Yoan Moncada, two of the team’s reliable OBP sources, tanked. This core, save Abreu, is all coming back, and Grifol’s primary task will be getting them back to health and to their pre-2022 levels."

Monday, November 28, 2022

Newsletter Excerpt, November 28, 2022 -- "NL Central Notes"

 

This is a preview of the Joe Sheehan Baseball Newsletter, an e-mail newsletter about all things baseball, featuring analysis and opinion about the game on and off the field from the perspective of the informed outsider. Joe Sheehan is a founding member of Baseball Prospectus and has been a contributor to Sports Illustrated and Baseball America. He has been writing about baseball for 25 years.

Your subscription gets you the newsletter and various related features two to five days a week, more than 150 mailings (more than 200,000 words) a year full of smart, fun baseball writing that you can't find in the mainstream. Subscribers can also access the new Slack workspace, to talk baseball with me and hundreds of other Newsletter subscribers.

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"Yelich is now a problem for the Brewers, who have a lot of good-not-great players like him. Their stars are on the mound, Brandon Woodruff and Corbin Burnes, and early speculation has them possibly trading one of them to manage payroll. This would effectively be adding to the cost of the Yelich contract and likely be the start of an ugly spiral. It’s one thing to spend $29 million a year on three wins; it’s another to sell off your true core to subsidize that expense."

Thursday, November 17, 2022

Newsletter Excerpt, November 17, 2022 -- "Cashman's Cash Men"

 

This is a preview of the Joe Sheehan Baseball Newsletter, an e-mail newsletter about all things baseball, featuring analysis and opinion about the game on and off the field from the perspective of the informed outsider. Joe Sheehan is a founding member of Baseball Prospectus and has been a contributor to Sports Illustrated and Baseball America. He has been writing about baseball for 25 years.

Your subscription gets you the newsletter and various related features two to five days a week, more than 150 mailings (more than 200,000 words) a year full of smart, fun baseball writing that you can't find in the mainstream. Subscribers can also access the new Slack workspace, to talk baseball with me and hundreds of other Newsletter subscribers.

You can subscribe to the newsletter for one year for $79.95 using your PayPal account or major credit card.

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"Drill down further, and you see Cashman built a 99-63 team in 2022, one that was beaten in the ALCS by a better team, the one that went on to win the World Series. Is Cashman just a bystander to that success? No, of course not; he and the front office he leads drafted Aaron Judge, signed Luis Severino, traded for Clay Holmes, picked Matt Carpenter off the scrap heap. That trade with the Twins everyone hates now (emphasis on now, as opposed to May) was good for a net 1.4 bWAR and sent away a player, in Gary Sanchez, whom the fan base despised by the end of his time in New York. Enjoy Nestor Cortes? That was Brian Cashman. Like the Jose Trevino story? Also Cashman."

Monday, November 14, 2022

Newsletter Excerpt, November 14, 2022 -- "The Interesting List"

This is a preview of the Joe Sheehan Baseball Newsletter, an e-mail newsletter about all things baseball, featuring analysis and opinion about the game on and off the field from the perspective of the informed outsider. Joe Sheehan is a founding member of Baseball Prospectus and has been a contributor to Sports Illustrated and Baseball America. He has been writing about baseball for 25 years.

Your subscription gets you the newsletter and various related features two to five days a week, more than 150 mailings (more than 200,000 words) a year full of smart, fun baseball writing that you can't find in the mainstream. Subscribers can also access the new Slack workspace, to talk baseball with me and hundreds of other Newsletter subscribers.

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--
 
"They have to spend some money right now. Adley Rutschman and Gunnar Henderson are here, Grayson Rodriguez is coming, you’re paying the three of them $2 million, maybe $3 million a year, through 2025. You can afford some $30 million players around them. Go get two middle-of-the-order hitters and two starting pitchers and you’ll still be $50 million under the tax threshold. The 2022 season caught the locals’ interest; it’s critical to keep it."

Friday, November 11, 2022

Newsletter Excerpt, November 11, 2022 -- "Carlos Correa"

This is a preview of the Joe Sheehan Baseball Newsletter, an e-mail newsletter about all things baseball, featuring analysis and opinion about the game on and off the field from the perspective of the informed outsider. Joe Sheehan is a founding member of Baseball Prospectus and has been a contributor to Sports Illustrated and Baseball America. He has been writing about baseball for 25 years.

Your subscription gets you the newsletter and various related features two to five days a week, more than 150 mailings (more than 200,000 words) a year full of smart, fun baseball writing that you can't find in the mainstream. Subscribers can also access the new Slack workspace, to talk baseball with me and hundreds of other Newsletter subscribers.

You can subscribe to the newsletter for one year for $79.95 using your PayPal account or major credit card.

--
 
"A team signing Correa gets his age-28 to age-34 seasons. Forget positional value, platform year, career to date, all of it. It’s incredibly hard to make up the difference between getting one player from ages 28 to 30 and the other from 35 to 37, which is what we’re talking about."

Thursday, November 10, 2022

Newsletter Excerpt, November 10, 2022 -- "Trea Turner"

This is a preview of the Joe Sheehan Baseball Newsletter, an e-mail newsletter about all things baseball, featuring analysis and opinion about the game on and off the field from the perspective of the informed outsider. Joe Sheehan is a founding member of Baseball Prospectus and has been a contributor to Sports Illustrated and Baseball America. He has been writing about baseball for 25 years.

Your subscription gets you the newsletter and various related features two to five days a week, more than 150 mailings (more than 200,000 words) a year full of smart, fun baseball writing that you can't find in the mainstream. Subscribers can also access the new Slack workspace, to talk baseball with me and hundreds of other Newsletter subscribers.

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"The players who age the best are the ones who have broad skill sets that include speed. Turner, like Larkin, does everything well on a baseball field. Larkin was the better defensive shortstop, Turner hits for more power. In Larkin’s era, Turner might have stolen 80 bases a year, and in Turner’s era, Larkin might have hit 300 homers. (He had 198 in his career.) Baseball Reference’s Similarity Scores have Larkin as Turner’s second-best comp through age 29."

Wednesday, November 9, 2022

Joe Sheehan Newsletter, November 9, 2022 -- "Aaron Judge"

 

This is a preview of the Joe Sheehan Baseball Newsletter, an e-mail newsletter about all things baseball, featuring analysis and opinion about the game on and off the field from the perspective of the informed outsider. Joe Sheehan is a founding member of Baseball Prospectus and has been a contributor to Sports Illustrated and Baseball America. He has been writing about baseball for 25 years.

Your subscription gets you the newsletter and various related features two to five days a week, more than 150 mailings (more than 200,000 words) a year full of smart, fun baseball writing that you can't find in the mainstream. Subscribers can also access the new Slack workspace, to talk baseball with me and hundreds of other Newsletter subscribers.

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--
 

The Joe Sheehan Newsletter
Vol. 14, No. 112
November 9, 2022

Measuring baseball greatness is both an exact science and a muddled mess, so take a statement like “Aaron Judge just had one of the 25 best seasons ever” with a grain of salt. Which version of WAR you use, how much you adjust for era, whether you just toss seasons prior to integration...you can get to a lot of answers. What we can say for sure is that we witnessed history in 2022, Judge hitting .311/.425/.686 with, and this didn’t get a lot of attention, an AL-record 62 home runs. With the Yankees outfield a tragedy, Judge played 78 games in center field and acquitted himself well.

What’s certain is that Judge’s 2022 season (10.6 bWAR) is one of the all-time walk years in history. Only Barry Bonds in 2001 produced more bWAR (11.9) entering free agency, and only Alex Rodriguez in 2000, in addition to Judge and Bonds, was over ten wins just before entering the market. Rodriguez signed a record-setting $252-million contract; Bonds, then 37, settled for five years and $90 million from the Giants. Platform year performance and age are the two biggest determinants of a free agent’s eventual contract. Judge is at the extreme end of one and on the wrong side of the other.

If it were just about 2023, or even perhaps the next three years, signing Aaron Judge would be a no-brainer at almost any number. The best free-agent investments are always, always, at the top and bottom of the market. Sign superstars, or sign lottery tickets. It’s the big money for the middle of the pool that gets everyone in trouble. The best players are more likely to stay great and they have further to fall while still being productive. If Aaron Judge is half the player he was last year, he’s still a star, and that’s an unlikely fall.

Judge being 31 next year, though, is a concern no matter how good he was at 30. Baseball is increasingly a young man’s game, with older hitters at the most risk of no longer keeping up with modern pitching. In the entire league last year, there were 14 hitters 31 or older who were worth three wins. There were 23 in 2021, 12 in 2019, nine in 2018. (I’m guessing that 2021 figure has something to do with the pandemic, maybe with young players’ development being hurt in 2020.) Judge will be 33 in the third year of his next contract. In 2022, there were five players 33 and older who were worth three wins. There were eight last year, ten in 2019, five in 2018.

Your eyes may be blurring at this point, so let me sum up that paragraph for you: It’s very hard to be a good player in your thirties in modern baseball. Mind you, the standard here is just three wins, a good MLB regular. If by 2025 Aaron Judge is posting three-win seasons while making $45 million a year, no one is going to consider that a success.

The biggest free-agent deals are generally signed by the youngest players, the ones who still have some peak left, some upside left. Alex Rodriguez was 24 in his walk year, Bryce Harper and Manny Machado were 25. (Jason Heyward, too, whoops.) Corey Seager was 27. Aaron Judge was 21 on the day he signed out of the draft and 25 before he was a major-league regular. He had five five-win seasons for the Yankees. You want to guess at how many he has left? I’ll set the line at 2.5 and want no part of the over.

The Yankees paid Judge, in salary, about $40 million for 37 WAR; he will get more than that in the first year of his next deal, which isn’t the problem. The problem is he will get more than that in the final year of his next deal, at 37 or 38 or 39, and there’s just no case for paying any hitter at those ages. Since 2016, there have been a total of six four-win seasons by players 35 and older. There have been a total of 17 three-win seasons by players 35 and older. Your list of productive older players in the Strikeout Era is basically Nelson Cruz, Adrian Beltre, Yuli Gurriel, and Ben Zobrist.

Age is one strike against making a long-term commitment to Aaron Judge. He’s surely had his best years and you will have to pay him current-market value at ages when almost no players are good, much less worth $40 million a season. Judge, though, comes with another strike, one we’ve discussed here before: He’s 6'7", and the track record of aging tall hitters is a disaster.

Falling From Great Heights (bWAR from age 31 on, hitters 6'6" and up)

Dave Winfield       26.2
Frank Howard        17.8
Giancarlo Stanton    3.8
Dave Kingman         2.8
Adam Wainwright      2.2



As I always point out, that’s Adam Wainwright's production as a hitter and defender -- it doesn’t include his pitching. He’s among the top five tall hitters after age 30.

Everyone wants to think the next guy is different, and maybe Aaron Judge is. Dave Winfield did it! Well, Winfield was one of the all-time great baseball athletes, the kind of true three-sport star we don’t let develop any longer. He played until he was 43 but had just one good year after 36. Judge is very athletic for his size; he’s not Dave Winfield. Frank Howard was a beast at the plate who might have hit 500 homers had he not played through Deadball II in the 1960s. Howard was not the athlete Judge is, and he was done at 35. That’s the list.

Oh, that third name on there? Do you think the Yankees really need to be lectured about the downside risk of tall outfielders? Giancarlo Stanton had a three-win year at 31 and was useless at 32. He played barely 500 innings in the outfield in that time and might not play that many over the rest of his career. Stanton is guaranteed $160 million over the next five years. The presence of Stanton complicates any Judge contract for the Yankees because you can’t play two players at DH, and Judge will eventually need to stop playing 1200 innings in the field.

(The Yankees, who have been a very popular topic in my inbox, will get a dedicated Newsletter soon.)

I can’t say for sure why very tall hitters age so poorly. My best guess is the bigger you are, the longer it takes to get all the moving parts of a swing going. Losing just a little bit of the hand-eye coordination it takes to be a great hitter may affect this group more than it does shorter players. If you lower the qualifier to 6'5", it brings in some guys who lasted a bit longer, but with injury-riddled thirties -- Mark McGwire, Frank Thomas. John Olerud is on the list but was basically done at 35. Jayson Werth was a zero at 32 and 33, then had two good years and was done at 36.

If you tell me I can sign Judge for five years and $225 million, I probably take that and just live with the decline in 2025 and 2026. Judge, though, turned down 7/230 already, and with this likely being his only chance to get paid, is probably uninterested in that sort of structure. Judge’s average salary could be anything, but I am pretty sure the contract length won’t be any shorter than seven years, and it could stretch to ten. I’m entirely uninterested in signing him, given all the data above about older players and tall hitters, to anything like that deal.

The one structure I would try to put together is an early opt-out that captures Judge’s short-term value while potentially getting me off the hook for the rest of his career. I would treat him like a pitcher, in other words, front-loading a deal for 2023 and 2024 and offering an opt-out after ’24, in the hopes that Judge plays well enough to test the market in two years, getting me off the hook for his age-33 seasons and beyond. Maybe something like 8/360, where the first two years are $50 million each and the last six average $43 million or so. Even writing it out, though, I am having a hard time crafting a deal that is both attractive to Judge and formatted so it's likely he will opt out.

The combination of one of the best platform seasons ever with a truly terrible free-agent profile makes this a brutal case. This piece makes it seem like I think Aaron Judge is bad, which is obviously not true. He’ll probably be an MVP candidate in 2023, wherever he plays, and at least a decent player for a few years after that. I just can’t see investing $350 million in any player’s thirties, much less one of Judge’s height.

So if not Judge, who is the most attractive free agent on the market? Tune in tomorrow...
 
 
 

Monday, November 7, 2022

Newsletter Excerpt, November 7, 2022 -- "Coda"

 

This is a preview of the Joe Sheehan Baseball Newsletter, an e-mail newsletter about all things baseball, featuring analysis and opinion about the game on and off the field from the perspective of the informed outsider. Joe Sheehan is a founding member of Baseball Prospectus and has been a contributor to Sports Illustrated and Baseball America. He has been writing about baseball for 25 years.

Your subscription gets you the newsletter and various related features two to five days a week, more than 150 mailings (more than 200,000 words) a year full of smart, fun baseball writing that you can't find in the mainstream. Subscribers can also access the new Slack workspace, to talk baseball with me and hundreds of other Newsletter subscribers.

You can subscribe to the newsletter for one year for $59.95 using your PayPal account or major credit card.

--
 
"Playoff coverage is actually getting worse instead of better, for reasons I don’t completely understand, beyond the obvious commercial ones. There is more money in making people mad than making people understand, a media lesson that goes far beyond sports. Until the messaging about the playoffs gets better, until fans are told over and over again that the results of short series aren’t big-picture meaningful, that there is no team-building methodology that makes you more likely to win October games than June games, we’re going to go through this again and again."

Sunday, November 6, 2022

Newsletter Excerpt, November 6, 2022 -- "Dynasty"

This is a preview of the Joe Sheehan Baseball Newsletter, an e-mail newsletter about all things baseball, featuring analysis and opinion about the game on and off the field from the perspective of the informed outsider. Joe Sheehan is a founding member of Baseball Prospectus and has been a contributor to Sports Illustrated and Baseball America. He has been writing about baseball for 25 years.

Your subscription gets you the newsletter and various related features two to five days a week, more than 150 mailings (more than 200,000 words) a year full of smart, fun baseball writing that you can't find in the mainstream. Subscribers can also access the new Slack workspace, to talk baseball with me and hundreds of other Newsletter subscribers.

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--
 
"Alvarez knew. He knew before Alvarado did, knew before Matt Vierling out in center did, knew before the guys in the booth or the fans in the stands. He didn’t strut, didn’t pose, just started down to first watching the ball like a guy who knew he wouldn’t be running hard. I’ve watched a lot of games played at Minute Maid Park, and I am sure I have never seen a ball hit over the batter’s eye in center, but that’s where this one landed, 450 feet away from home plate. It would have been an epic blast on a muggy night in July against the Marlins. To win the World Series? It was legendary before the ball even landed."

Friday, November 4, 2022

Newsletter Excerpt, November 4, 2022 -- "Phillies Chas-tened"

This is a preview of the Joe Sheehan Baseball Newsletter, an e-mail newsletter about all things baseball, featuring analysis and opinion about the game on and off the field from the perspective of the informed outsider. Joe Sheehan is a founding member of Baseball Prospectus and has been a contributor to Sports Illustrated and Baseball America. He has been writing about baseball for 25 years.

Your subscription gets you the newsletter and various related features two to five days a week, more than 150 mailings (more than 200,000 words) a year full of smart, fun baseball writing that you can't find in the mainstream. Subscribers can also access the new Slack workspace, to talk baseball with me and hundreds of other Newsletter subscribers.

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"The Phillies bullpen, though, is the story of this postseason. Phillies relievers have allowed just three runs in 23 2/3 innings in this World Series. They are striking out the Astros, a very hard team to strike out, 30% of the time. It was just not possible to see this coming."

Thursday, November 3, 2022

Joe Sheehan Newsletter, November 3, 2022 -- No(hit)vember

 

This is a preview of the Joe Sheehan Baseball Newsletter, an e-mail newsletter about all things baseball, featuring analysis and opinion about the game on and off the field from the perspective of the informed outsider. Joe Sheehan is a founding member of Baseball Prospectus and has been a contributor to Sports Illustrated and Baseball America. He has been writing about baseball for 25 years.

Your subscription gets you the newsletter and various related features two to five days a week, more than 150 mailings (more than 200,000 words) a year full of smart, fun baseball writing that you can't find in the mainstream. Subscribers can also access the new Slack workspace, to talk baseball with me and hundreds of other Newsletter subscribers.

You can subscribe to the newsletter for one year for $59.95 using your PayPal account or major credit card.

--
 

The Joe Sheehan Newsletter
Vol. 14, No. 108
November 3, 2022

So, yeah, Cristian Javier is pretty good.

Once again leaning on that four-seamer that hitters can’t seem to find, Javier threw six no-hit innings as part of a combined no-hitter that tied the World Series up at two games apiece. Javier struck out nine batters, and of the nine who put balls in play, none came close to a hit. Per Baseball Savant, none of the Phillies’ batted balls had even a .330 expected batting average, and six of the nine came in under .100. Javier didn’t pitch past the sixth, but this is what a dominant postseason pitching performance looks like in 2022.

(Editor Scott points out that this is also what no-hitters look like in 2022. Six of the last seven no-hitters have been combined efforts.)

It was the second time this year Javier contributed to a combined no-hitter, the first coming against the Yankees in June. In 12 1/3 innings in these playoffs, Javier has allowed just one run on two hits, and he’s struck out 36% of the batters he’s faced. In his three-year career, he now has a 2.20 postseason ERA, with 48 strikeouts against just 14 hits allowed. No, that’s not a typo.

It’s fair to hold combined no-hitters apart a bit, as no-hitters are more individual accomplishments than team ones. When that combined no-hitter happens with a team down 2-1 in the World Series, though, it’s possible to be too jaded. It was a no-hitter in the World Series! That’s happened exactly once, 66 years ago. It was a no-hitter in the postseason! That’s happened one other time, 12 years ago. I don’t care if the Astros used all 38 pitchers they’re carrying and the Phillies went up there with souvenir bats, that’s a big moment, that’s an incredible accomplishment.

Last night I got a text message from a friend who more or less told me to do more bat flips, so from October 11...

One Big Question: Will we see the third postseason no-hitter this year? Justin Verlander left the game with a no-hitter intact three times in his last six starts. The Dodgers (1114) and Astros (1121) allowed the second- and third-fewest hits of any team since 1968, and two of the bottom-15 totals of all time.

To turn a no-hitter into a win, however, the Astros needed to score, something that has been a problem for them this postseason, and was one for four innings last night. The Astros strung together three singles to start the fifth, though. With Yordan Alvarez coming up, Rob Thomson hooked Nola and went to his best left-handed reliever, just as he did in Game One. It was another aggressive call from Thomson, who just seems to understand postseason baseball. Unfortunately for him, the other guys get paid, too. Alvarado drilled Alvarez with his first pitch, forcing in the first run of the game. He then got too much of the plate with an 0-2 sinker -- at 101, mind you -- to Alex Bregman, who was able to go the other way for a two-run double. By the time the inning was over, the Astros were up 5-0 and the Phillies bullpen’s scoreless streak was over.

The Astros’ five-run fifth was the latest crooked number in a World Series defined by them. There have been 30 runs scored in the Series, 15 by each team. Of those 30, 27 have come in innings of two runs or more. There have been just three single-run innings in four games. Of the 72 “ups” in the World Series, runs have been scored in just 13 of them. It’s big-inning baseball, and both teams have been up for it.

That the Phillies are tied 2-2 in this Series is remarkable when you consider that everyone figured their path to a victory was through the right arms of Aaron Nola and Zack Wheeler. Through four games, the two of them have allowed 13 of the 15 runs the Phillies have conceded, they have an 8.10 ERA in 13 2/3 innings, and neither has seen the sixth inning. Wheeler isn’t even starting today’s critical Game Five on four days’ rest, Thomson electing to hold him back over concerns about his fatigue level.

The Phillies are going with Noah Syndergaard instead. Syndergaard, acquired from the Angels at the trade deadline, isn’t really Thor any more. He throws 94 now, down 3-4 mph from his pre-surgery peak, and is as likely to try to get you out with his curve as he is to blow a fastball past you. He was basically average this year for the Halos and Phils, a 3.94 ERA, 3.83 FIP in 5 1/2 innings a start, a combined two wins above replacement. Thomson has worked around him in this run, starting him just once, in NLDS Game Four, and hooking him after ten batters (3 IP, 1 R).

Given Syndergaard’s current skill set, Thomson’s aggressiveness, the off day tomorrow and a lightly worked bullpen, I don’t think the starter will be in the game for long. While all this is game-script dependent, something like Syndergaard for 11 batters, Ranger Suarez for three (Alvarez/Bregman/Tucker), Zack Eflin for six, then Jose Alvarado, David Robertson, and Seranthony Dominguez for whatever is left seems right. I’d rather ask Suarez for 15 pitches on his second day after a start than put Brad Hand into a meaningful spot or use Alvarado that early in the game. If the Phillies can get to Alvarado with the game still in the balance, they can win this one. All of the risk, though, is in that first time through the lineup. The last time they were in this spot, needing help from the back of the rotation, Bailey Falter put them behind 4-0 after seven batters.

The story today, though, is Justin Verlander. In this space, where we don’t define players by small subsets of their career, Verlander’s legacy is set. He’s one of the very best pitchers of the 21st century, with an argument that he is the very best. He has a ring, he has awards, he has career earnings of more than $300 million, and he has a supermodel wife. There’s nothing Verlander can do tonight in Philadelphia to change my mind about him.

This space, however, isn’t the wider world. Verlander goes to the mound tonight with an increasingly horrid track record on the biggest stage: a 6.07 ERA in eight World Series starts. His teams are 1-7 when he takes the mound in the Fall Classic and have lost four straight. He’s never had a signature start at this level; his best postseason start came in 2017, when he posted six innings of two-run ball (Game Score: 67) in a 3-1 Astros loss. He has two other six-inning quality starts in the World Series. He’s pitched into the seventh once in eight Series starts, and never gotten an out after the sixth. He’s never been credited with a World Series win. Cristian Javier, just to pick a name at random with less than 1% of Verlander’s career, has been. Verlander’s good work, at volume, in the AL brackets over the years -- a 3.04 ERA in 160 ALDS and ALCS innings -- isn’t what people remember.

This is arguably the biggest game in which Verlander has ever pitched, with his team tied 2-2 in the World Series. Verlander has had two chances to clinch World Series in the past. In 2017’s Game Six, he pitched well but got just one run of support in a 3-1 loss. In 2019, he coughed up an early lead in the fifth inning, allowing two solo homers to put the Astros behind for good in a Series they would lose in seven games.

Everything is set for Verlander tonight. He was the best pitcher in his league this year and is pitching for the best team he’s ever played for. He gets the ball on a fairly cool, fairly dry night; we saw the ball wasn’t flying much in last night’s contest, and the conditions will be similar tonight. He’s had an extra day of rest, and in fact, has barely pitched over the last five weeks. He doesn’t need to go the distance, doesn’t need to pace himself. The Astros have such incredible pitching depth that five good innings from Verlander should be plenty.

The ugly reality of the expanded-playoffs era is that to history, October matters more than the six months that precede it. All-time greats have had their career accomplishments ignored in favor of a listing of playoff failures. Others we remember as legends because they got the big hit, the big strikeout, the big double play. Barry Bonds over here, David Ortiz over there. Alex Rodriguez over here, Derek Jeter over there. No stats, just vibes.

Tonight, Justin Verlander’s career gets sorted, for good, into one of those groups.
 

Wednesday, November 2, 2022

Newsletter Excerpt, November 2, 2022 -- "Blowout"

 

This is a preview of the Joe Sheehan Baseball Newsletter, an e-mail newsletter about all things baseball, featuring analysis and opinion about the game on and off the field from the perspective of the informed outsider. Joe Sheehan is a founding member of Baseball Prospectus and has been a contributor to Sports Illustrated and Baseball America. He has been writing about baseball for 25 years.

Your subscription gets you the newsletter and various related features two to five days a week, more than 150 mailings (more than 200,000 words) a year full of smart, fun baseball writing that you can't find in the mainstream. Subscribers can also access the new Slack workspace, to talk baseball with me and hundreds of other Newsletter subscribers.

You can subscribe to the newsletter for one year for $59.95 using your PayPal account or major credit card.

--
 
"After these last few games, I am wondering if I was overrating Baker because his teams have been so good they’ve been hard to screw up. For him to express worry about going through his whole pitching staff, which consists of 13 pitchers, ten of whom were available to him in relief last night, is mind-boggling."