Tuesday 9/30 MLB Wild Card Game One/Series Thoughts & Analysis

As you can see, we already have umpire assignments for the entire series. We can be relatively confident about lineups and should have some preliminary weather information, so you can just about fill out your daily fantasy lineups early.

The first thing to note, before we even get started, is - wow, five left-handed starters. This is going to take some lineups out of their comfort zone right away. 

Tigers @ Guardians

I responded to a tweet about the ending of the Mets season on Sunday with the following:

Top 5 in position player WAR. Top 10 pitching. 18th xERA. How do you even propose to fix something like this? Defense?

Why the hell would I bring that up here? The Guardians were 24^th in position player fWAR. They were 12^th in pitching. By xERA, they were 11^th. Defensively…well there we go. Top five team.

The bullpen lost Emmanuel Clase halfway through the season and Cade Smith is the only Guardian reliever dominating like he did last year. Still, the Guardians ran the top bullpen estimators over the last month of the season, mostly on the back of retreads like Koby Allard, Matt Festa and Jakob Junis.

I would personally throw Parker Messick in Game Three, which means that some combination of he, Joey Cantillo, Slade Cecconi and Logan Allen can be added to the bullpen.

However, they’ll either have to beat Tarik Skubal or both Jack Flaherty and Casey Mize to advance. Or at least hold it close enough against Skubal to make it a battle of the bullpens where they should have a significant edge because the Tigers don’t really have anyone to add to improve their bottom third of the league bullpen over the last month. It’s certainly the biggest weakness of the Detroit unit.

But let’s start with their biggest strength and that is Skubal, who ended the season with two starts against the Guardians and it’s certainly not his fault they’re in this position (12 IP – 51 BF – 4 R – 2 ER – 1 HR (1 barrel) – 5 BB – 17 K – 17.3 SwStr% - 37.9 HardHit%).

The Guardians were neither a good offense at home (89 wRC+), nor against LHP (81 wRC+). The projected lineup (I’m using Rotogrinders for this) includes three batters (Ramirez, Martinez, Rodriguez) who were even above an 87 wRC+ vs LHP this season with the last six all above a 26 K%.

If I can draw your attention to the last chart, Skubal easily has the top matchup on the board by pure run value and we’ll get to the reason later why he has competition in the pitch modeling aspect, but that in no why diminishes his elite work this season. Among pitchers with 80 or more innings this season (so we remove the closers), Tarik Skubal led the majors with a 27.8 K-BB%. With only a 33 HardHit%, he doesn’t have a single estimator reaching 2.75. He’s the best pitcher in baseball until proven otherwise.

The Detroit Tigers were 17^th in team wRC+ since the trade deadline (97) and 21^st (94) since the All-Star break. Still, their projected nine averaged a 102 RC+ against RHP this season and only Meadows (small sample) and Baez (great defender) are below 90.

While not as good as Cleveland, the Tigers were not bad defensively. We already discussed their bullpen issues and their offense is still better than Cleveland, but Skubal is the largest edge they have in this game. Gavin Williams is volatile and unpredictable. Sometimes that’s a good thing, but I think Cleveland was looking for a little more consistency, maybe even a breakout this year. He finished with a 12.0 K-BB%, exactly league average 9.0% Barrels/BBE and a 44.3 HardHit%. His xERA (4.27) and SIERA (4.35) are each a run and a half worse than Skubal. His 3.06 ERA, a product of a .254 BABIP (some defensive credit) and 83.8 LOB%.

Williams allowed RHBs a .331 wOBA and .325 xwOBA, doing better against LHBs (.269 wOBA), but also with a .331 xwOBA. The good news is that Williams posted an 18.4 K-BB% over his last 12 starts, but even then, was no higher than 6.5% four times. I give Skubal an overall edge of a bit more than a run and a quarter.

Progressive Field is tied for the second lowest run environment in the league via Statcast’s three year park factors. Temperatures should be around 70 degrees, but google suggests significant wind in this game. We’ll have to wait for an updated forecast to hear more. Shane Livensparger is the most hitter friendly umpire on this slate. In fact, he’s the most extreme to either side with the three other umpires trending closer to neutral, though Livensparger wasn’t the most hitter friendly umpire in the league, he was probably top 10.

Now, I’m going to contradict myself. I like the Tigers to win this series and will be playing them (-112) in my Wild Card Round Robin. However, I think the Guardians are being slightly short changed for their defensive and bullpen edges in this game. Even money, give me the Skubal side. I make him the Tigers the favorite and even a near -150 F5 favorite, but once Cleveland’s bullpen edge kicks in, that drops a bit. I’m going to bank on Williams’ volatility being a positive thing and if it’s not, that works well for my series play too.

CLE (G1) +138 (DK) 0.5u

Skubal is the most expensive pitcher on the board and likely the pitcher with the longest leash (I will assume bullpen usage in the post-season doesn’t need a refresher). However, the guys on this board are mostly aces and all probably enjoy a degree of confidence from their managers. Skubal is a top three arm for me here, but perhaps not the top arm. There may be a better spot or two. Slightly. While Williams is actually a bottom three ranking pitcher on this board for me, he’s also the second cheapest on either site and you can also bank on his volatility here to perhaps win someone a GPP.

The only batter I’m even slightly interested in for this entire game is a cheap Parker Meadows in the leadoff spot and even then, not so much. Both projected catchers are strong throwers. Skubal is the easier to run on, but even that’s about neutral and not enough reason to roster a bat against him. Most of the individual pitcher/batters pitch run value matchups skew negative (favoring the pitcher).

Padres @ Cubs

The Padres rank one spot behind the Cubs and about a quarter or a run in terms of bullpen estiamtors over the last 30 days. That’s a surprise, especially with Danny Palencia out and it looks like he will be back for this series. Still, even with that bump, I’m afraid of undervaluing the San Diego bullpen and still can’t confidently give the Cubs any edge in that department.

Where I certainly do give the Cubs an edge and a significant one is defensively, while the Padres are not necessarily a bad defensive team either.

While you would also lean towards giving the Cubs an offensive edge, especially when the Padres are facing a LHP, the Cubs were also just middle of the league in wRC+ (below 100) since both the trade deadline and All Star break. The Padres also got one of their better hitters against LHP back (114 wRC+ this year) in Xander Bogaerts, with Ramon Laureano exiting due to injury. The Cubs also got back Kyle Tucker, but in what kind of health after he and PCA both struggled mightily in the second half. Tucker was starting to put it together just before hitting the IL again.

Several times, I emphasized where Nick Pivetta has both a better K-BB (22.8% to 19.4%) and hard hit rate (41.1% to 45%) with the same percentage of barrels (10.9%) his last two years in Boston versus this year in San Diego.

The differences that have most benefited Pivetta were BABIP (.274 vs .235), strand rate (74% vs 78.7%) and home runs. Fifty-one of 81 barrels left the yard his last two years in Boston, as opposed to 22 of 52 his first year in San Diego.

This is not at all to suggest that Pivetta has been a bad pitcher. The xERA reaches 3.99 with that contact profile, but that’s the worst number. I just wanted to illustrate, he may have been a slightly better pitcher in Boston with a worse ERA (and defense usually).

The bad news for the Padres (or good for the Cubs) is that they’re essentially forced to play three to four LHBs against LHP and only Cronenworth has been above a 100 wRC+ and it’s probably four with Laureano out just as Bogaerts comes back.

The bad news for the Cubs is that Horton’s injury keeps them from putting any solid starters in the bullpen (depending on what you think of Rea and Assad), while the left-handed duo of Matthew Boyd and Shota Imanaga struggled to end the season. We’ll only focus on the latter here, but at times Boyd was a savior for this rotation. He never actually lived up to his 3.21 ERA (3.65 FIP – 4.22 xFIP), but that’s still in the average to above average range. The problem is he was much better than that prior to his last seven starts (37 IP – 25 R – 10 K-BB% - 12.3% Barrels/BBE – 41.4 HardHit% - 6.08 ERA/5.38 FIP/5.59 xFIP.

Even with the Padres projecting just four batters above a 100 wRC+ vs LHP this year and only Machado (128) above 116, that ending line doesn’t inspire a lot of confidence.

Would it surprise you to learn that Wrigely is one of those parks tied with Progressive Field for the second lowest run environment in baseball over the last three years? Possibly because they’ve had more cooler weather/wind blowing in games? Temperatures are expected to be low 70s here with less wind than Cleveland, but we also want to make sure to recheck in the morning. Erich Bacchus is the most neutral umpire on the board for Tuesday.

I have no interest in this game and feel the market is right with the Cubs slightly favored, but I do like the Padres overall in this series with a bit better starting pitching and no real inherent disadvantages besides defense here. They are currently slight dogs (+106) and I will add them to my Round Robin parlay at any positive number down to even.

For daily fantasy purposes, I would expect these two managers to perhaps be most aggressive and that somewhat limits my interest in bats here, but Michael Busch (151 wRC+, .281 ISO v RHP this year, 168 wRC+ L30 days) looks like a top value and bat here. Hoerner and Happ may be fine and even Tucker, depending on what you think of his health. Pivetta had a small reverse split this year with RHBs holding a .322 xwOBA (50 point lower wOBA) and LHBs a .314 xwOBA (.239 wOBA). Boyd had about a 30 point standard split with RHBs near average.

Boyd is the cheapest pitcher on the board and I could see why some may want to roster him as an SP2. The Padres proj. LU averages just a 17.3 K% vs LHP though. Boyd is my second worst projected pitcher on the board, while Pivetta is actually my worst and a lot of that is because I think this is a spot where each manager may be more aggressive with bullpens (or at least they probably should be).

Bullpen stats L30 days...

A few words about the bullpen numbers. I've bolded the post-season teams and surprise, surprise, each of the top five and six of the top seven bullpen estimators over the last month of the season advance. Of course, the Mets are the odd man out, as their bullpen picked up too late over the last week or so. 

You'll see a similar theme with defense, which, by the way, I've converted to Fielding Run Value for teams as well as players and projected lineups, even though it still says Team Runs Prevented in the first chart. 

Also, remember, teams will be employing their backend starters out of the bullpen in this series, which is probably more of a positive for the Dodgers than anyone else. Especially if they're going to add Sasaki to that bullpen, as he has looked good in recent rehab starts. It also seems the Cubs will be getting Palencia back sooner than later, as he threw his first rehab outing the other day and I don't imagine a one inning reliever would need much more than that at this stage of the season. 

Red Sox @ Yankees

You might initially think that a LHP messes up the Yankees more than the Red Sox due to the number of LHBs in either’s lineup. Well, the Yankees can and even project to put out a lineup without a batter below a 100 wRC+ against LHP this year.

The bullpens are very close on our board above. However, the Yankees certainly have the bigger names and can add high upside, but underperforming arms like Will Warren and Luis Gil into shorter roles where they may shine, while the Red Sox have rookies Tolle and Early, but may otherwise be in trouble beyond Crochet.

Speaking of whom, Garrett Crochet is your American League Cy Young in a world in which Tarik Skubal does not exist. Some people still believe he’ll give Skubal a sweat. His strikeout rate (31.7%) was nearly as high as his hard hit rate (37.3%), while he posted a 28 K-BB% over his final 24 starts. A 3.13 Bot ERA (still third best on the board) was Crochet’s only estimator reaching three.

It’s a bit surprising to see Boston have the defensive edge here, but I also give Crochet the advantage by about half a run over Fried.

The Boston projected line includes four batters with at least a 135 wRC+ against LHP this year (Gonzalez, Refsnyder, Bregman and Sogard), though only two others reaching 90. Make no mistake, the Red Sox are at a clear offensive disadvantage here and it’s probably the most lopsided angle of this game and series.

Max Fried has been a bit up and down, but did finish strong with three runs over his last 19.1 innings (26.9 K-BB%, 31.9 HardHit%). Overall, Fried posted a better K-BB (17.2%) than his last year in Atlanta, but worse than any of his previous three seasons. His 52.4 GB% is well below his 58.5% mark the previous two seasons and his 6.9% Barrels/BBE and 37.2 HardHit% are both five year worsts (the former a career worst). Mind you, these are not great numbers only when comparing Fried to himself. They’re still numbers that would top a lot of rotations with only a 3.61 SIERA and 3.79 Bot ERA reaching above three and half and with a one point higher Pitching+ than Crochet.

Yankee Stadium is a completely neutral run environment (100). It may even surprise you to realize that the home run factors for right and left-handed batters is almost exactly the same too. Perhaps that has a lot to do with Judge (and even Stanton) being able to poke the ball out to right field. Left-center is really the only difficult part of the park. We don’t seem to be looking at any weather impact, while Junior Valentine leads slightly pitcher friendly.

I have no interest in the price on this game, but expect the Yankees to be large favorites in the second and third game (if need be) and will add them to my Wild Card Round Robin at a price I probably wouldn’t play (-165) otherwise.

Fried is one of the toughest pitchers to run on, so you can forget about the Boston base running edge doing much for them in that aspect. While Crochet would be one of the worst at holding runners in the league, Narvaez has been one of the best at throwing them out. The only batters with a strong pitch run value matchup is Judge and it’s still significant against Crochet because he destroys fastballs and cutters.

I’m trying to roster Judge here. Even against Crochet. Both projected leadoff hitters (Gonzalez & Goldschmidt) each exceed a 160 wRC+ and .230 ISO vs LHP this season. Both are potentially great values, at least as far as this particular slate of studs goes. A cheap Refsnyder is the other bat I’m interested in here.

Crochet probably has as much of a leash as any pitcher on this board aside from Skubal. He’s tied for my top overall ranking. There are some strikeouts here for him, especially if Slater starts. Both he and Stanton struck out at a 30% rate against southpaws this year. Judge, Chisholm, Volpe and Wells all struck out more than average too. Crochet is a better value on FanDuel.

Fried is only my fourth ranked overall arm, but perhaps my favorite FD value for less than $9K. He’s also likely a top half of the board value on DraftKings at a similar price.

Below, these last two graphics are pitch matchup ratings, explained here. It uses pitch frequencies and run values both for the pitcher and the opposing offense and then attempts to add in pitch modeling, which sometimes differs from actual results. 

Reds @ Dodgers

My initial inclination was to bet the Dodgers to sweep. The Reds, who backed into the post-season with 83 wins, absolutely do not deserve a chance to play for a championship. That may be more about my rant on third wild cards, but at least the Guardians actually won the games.

I admit, I had momentarily forgotten about Hunter Greene, the biggest weapon the Reds have by far and possibly only one that can contend with the Dodgers. In fact, Greene has the best pitch modeling on the board, better than even Skubal. I have him right on par with Snell. His worst estimators are barely more than a half run above his 2.76 ERA without any reaching 3.30. He returned from his annual IL stint to post a 25.7 K-BB% over his last eight starts, lifting up his season rate to 25.2%. Greene does struggle with long balls (9.6% Barrels/BBE, 45 HardHit%) and that’s the largest concern about the Dodgers and this power friendly park, but he held both left and right-handed batters below a league average wOBA and xwOBA this year.

On the season and via projected lineup, the Dodgers have a neutral defense. However, the Reds have improved their defense and project to send out an above average defensive unit against Snell, despite being below average as a team this year.

Bullpens are a bit trickier. The Reds rate just a bit ahead of the Dodgers over the last 30 days, both middle of the pack. There’s no denying the big blue bullpen has been a disappointment this year, but they’re adding a recently dominant Sheehan and either Ohtani or Glasnow to that group. And, again, don’t forget about Sasaki impressing in recent, shorter outings as well. I’d be willing to drop the Dodgers half a run under those circumstances and have to give them that edge.

The absolute biggest edge the Dodgers have and especially in this game, is their offense. Over 30 points of wRC+ via home/road and vs LHP/RHP by team. And nearly 30 points by projected lineups vs L/RHP. The Reds have a base running edge, but it’s smaller and you have to get on base to run the bases.

Blake Snell peaked at exactly the right time, posting double digit strikeout starts in two straight before his last start of the season, in which he struck out five of 23 Diamondbacks. Snell walked four and struck out two in each of his first two starts for the Dodgers. Then he hit the IL. In nine starts since returning, he has a 24 K-BB%, hitting 40% three times and 33% as well. His strong pitch modeling may just be middle of the board among this group, but a 3.64 SIERA is his only estimator reaching three and a half. Snell also managed to keep nearly half his contact on the ground (48.7%) with just a 34 HardHit%.

Dodger Stadium is the most positive run environment on the board with a 102 park run factor for the last three years via Statcast. It’s one of the most power friendly parks in the league with very consistent weather. Nick Mahrley has been just as pitcher friendly as Valentine. Not all that much.

Snell is one of the easier pitchers to run on if you can get on, but Rortvedt is a neutral arm, putting near the bottom of the board among this group. Greene and Stephenson average out to a neutral running situation. Miguel Andujar is the only bat popping in the pitch run value matchups and that’s due to success against fastballs, curves and changeups.

Ohtani is the top bat on the board and projects as a strong value, along with Max Muncy and Andujar. Stephenson may be the best of a weak catcher group. I have Snell tied for the top pitcher ranking with Crochet, but would actually push him slightly behind because I think he has a bit lesser leash with the strength now in that bullpen. Snell would be my second favorite FanDuel value in a great matchup though. Green is middle of the board in both ranking and price. He’s…fine? I have him and Snell projected similarly for value on DraftKings.

Even after adjusting the Dodger bullpen, I find slight value on the Reds here, as they’re quite the dog and otherwise fairly comparable in every aspect except offensively.

CIN +167 (DK) 0.5u

That said, I really can’t fathom the Reds knocking out the Dodgers here and am paying much less attention to prices just for fun with the Wild Card Round Robin and have to take the Dodgers at an enormous price, even though I think they have a legitimate chance to lose the first game.

Heck, I think all four of my Series Round Robin teams could lose the first game.