Thursday 10/2 MLB Wild Card G3 Thoughts & Analysis

Tigers @ Guardians

Jack Flaherty finishes his season with a five inning effort where he allowed a single run, despite as many walks (four) as strikeouts, followed up by just 4.1 innings with three runs allowed, despite striking out six of 19 batters without a walk. Both of those starts came against Cleveland. Flaherty also gained velocity in each of his last three starts, averaging a season high 94.1 mph in his last outing. True, he only threw 83 pitches, but he’s thrown that many or less in other games without the same velocity.

Flaherty’s 18.9 K-BB% suggests he remained an All-Star starter, but the 10.3% Barrels/BBE were a problem. Stil, his 4.04 xERA was more than half a run below his 4.64 ERA (.305 BABIP is 19 points more than Cleveland defense allowed, 70.5 LOB%). Contact neutral estimators were in the upper threes. While these two pitchers have the worst pitch modeling on the board, Flaherty’s 4.78 Bot ERA is in stark contrast to a 100 Pitching+.

Flaherty is likely to face the same eight LHB lineup the Guardians threw out against Mize on Wednesday. While its really a marginal bunch, Flaherty had a near 50 point split with LHBs above a .330 wOBA and xwOBA and RHBs below .300.

Some people thought Slade Cecconi may become a thing with an 16.4 K-BB% through his first 10 starts, but that number dropped to 12.5% with an eight point drop in strikeout rate (16.9%) over his final 13 outings. Unfortunately, a poor contact profile (12.2% Barrels/BBE, 49.1 HardHit%) remained consistent. More contact with that amount of hard contact is going to cause problems, as the 15 home runs Cecconi allowed during that second stretch can attest to.

Cecconi’s pitch modeling and contact neutral estimators were all within a quarter of a run of his 4.30 ERA, but he may have been a bit fortunate with an xERA (5.22) nearly a full run higher. While he posted a 34 point reverse split by wOBA, Statcast swapped that into a standard 17 point split via xwOBA. He’ll likely face the same lineup the Tigers have posted in the first two games, which has struggled since the All-Star break and has scored all of three runs in this series so far.

I have the Guardians very slightly favored here for defense, bullpen and home field, though the Detroit offense has an edge and I give Flaherty half a run on Cecconi. This puts me in line with the market. Weather shouldn’t be as significant a factor as it was the first two games, but it seemed double digit wind blowing in from right didn’t stop the ball from leaving the park in that direction several times. Remember, Progressive Field is tied with Wrigley Field, among other parks, for the second most negative run environment in the league under neutral circumstances and we have the very slightly pitcher friendly David Rackley behind the plate, causing me to set this total around seven.

This is not a strong running situation for either team, as both pitchers and projected catchers handle the running game very well. George Varela is a strong small sample standout against Flaherty’s arsenal in terms of pitch run values. Brayan Rocchio is the next largest positive number. Both homered in Wednesday’s game, the latter turning around a 100 mph pitch like he was Aaron Judge.

Assuming the same daily fantasy pricing as Wednesday, guys like Meadows and Varela could be cheap value plays near the top of the lineup and Ramirez looks more playable with a better matchup and more neutral weather. It’s still not the ideal daily fantasy spot for offense, but looks better the fewer games there are obviously. The Tigers do have some strikeouts in this lineup (as you may have noticed so far in this series) with only Torres below a 21.7% mark against RHP this year, so a cheap Cecconi may be as playable as anyone in an SP2 spot. The projected Cleveland lineup also includes five batters above a 25 K% vs RHP, but the other four are no higher than 18% and Flaherty is probably more adequately priced, a bit more expensively, against a predominantly left-handed lineup.

Padres @ Cubs

When you have two bullpens as good as these two teams have been, you can’t expect the third starters of struggling staffs to last very long. The only caveat being that Mason Miller may not be available after extended duty on the second of consecutive days, but he’s far from their only relief weapon.

Unfortunately, Yu Darvish only showed a few flashes when on the IL this season with a high of seven strikeouts produced twice over 15 starts. He only completed six innings three times, but did throw quality starts with one run or less allowed in each of those starts. He only recorded two six inning outs over his last six starts.

There is good news though. We can blame some of his 5.38 ERA on a 65.8 LOB% and 14 of his 18 barrels leaving the park. Darvish only allowed a 33% hard hit rate with a 16.6 K-BB%, but if you take away his first four starts back, he posted an elite 21.8 K-BB% over his last 11. Non-FIP estimators were all well more than a run better than actual results, bested by a 3.64 xERA.

The one massive problem Darvish really does have though is his platoon split with LHBs above a .360 wOBA and xwOBA RHBs below .290. The Cubs will run out a balanced lineup with four LHBs generally, unless Darvish’s split makes them alter a lineup that was shut out on Wednesday.

Jameson Taillon allowed just two runs over his final 19 innings (three quality starts), including a season high eight strikeouts in his final effort of the season. Taillon will throw six pitches, but only his fastball (38.5%) more than 15.1% of the time. It doesn’t lead to a lot of missed bats (18.9 K%), but he commands his arsenal well (5.2 BB%, 65 BotCmd, 109 Location+) and has managed contact fairly well this season (8.1% Barrels/BBE, 38.3 HardHit%). The result of all of the above is a 3.63 Bot ERA and 3.88 xERA that run near his actual results (3.68 ERA) with more traditional estimators (4.34 xFIP – 4.77 dERA) running quite a bit higher.

The Padres are certainly better off facing a RHB, having run out five LHBs against both lefties in the first two games of the series. The same lineup averages a 188 wRC+, .156 ISO and 17.8 K% vs RHP this year. While Taillon has a 60 point reverse split, Statcast narrows that down to a single point with batters from either side essentially owning a league average xwOBA against him this year.

Wrigley appears to have forecast for fairly neutral weather on Thursday with D.J. Reyburn a fairly neutral umpire as well. Taking a bit off the San Diego bullpen for Miller’s questionable availability, I give the Cubs (slight defensive and offensive edges) a small home field edge and make them a short favorite with starting pitchers coming out almost even. That, again, is in line with the market price and seven and a half run total.

Both pitchers are below average at holding base runners, Darvish more so, while both catchers are above average at throwing them out, Kelly more so, which certainly gives the Cubs the better running situation here. While most of the Chicago lineup grades out well against Darvish’s arsenal, we must remember that this is from a pitch run value standpoint and there’s a strong chance that Darvish pitched much better than his results. Freddy Fermin is the only batter with a poor pitch run value matchup in this game.

Considering the splits, we still have to strongly consider LH Cubs here, while Tatis and Merrill grade out best overall for the Padres. Again, assuming a smaller workload, Taillon’s $7.5K price tag on DraftKings is the only one that barely interests me.

Bullpen stats L30 days (post-season teams in bold)...

Red Sox @ Yankees

Game two has just ended and this game will be a reality, which I’m absolutely stoked about because it’s the Big Breakfast Matchup (Early Schlittler). Early was a late decision for the Red Sox and not actually confirmed yet and I still wouldn’t expect him to pitch too deep into this game, though his results through four starts have been tremendous. Early has struck out 29 of 79 batters with just four walks and a 16.1 SwStr%! When opponents have made contact, he’s kept it on the ground more than league average (46.7%), allowing just 4.4% Barrels/BBE (two barrels), despite a 40% hard hit rate, which only works out to 4.5 hard hit batted balls per game so far.

While Early has posted 20+ K-BB% rates at every stop of his minor league travels, he only had 28.2 innings at AAA and has never produced a strikeout rate above 32.3% or walk rate below 8.2% and suddenly he’s at 36.7% and 5.1%. Early graduated with a 45+ Future Value grade (Fangraphs) and still has projections hovering around four.

We mentioned before game one that the Yankee offense is still pretty devastating to LHPs. That particular lineup, which they may run out again, averaged a 142 wRC+ and .237 ISO vs LHP this year. Six of those batters struck out at least 23% of the time against southpaws, but three of the first five struck out less than 12.5% of the time. Early has held batters from either side of the plate to no higher than a .260 wOBA or xwOBA so far.

Cam Schlittler posted his first quality start in his seventh major league start and simply rolled to 11 runs over his final 43.1 innings with a 21.3 K-BB% and just 6.1% Barrels/BBE. When we add back in his first six starts, estimators range from a 3.74 FIP to a 4.11 dERA, but I’m wouldn’t expect his 2.96 ERA to regress nearly that far, even if he won’t sustain an 84.5 LOB%.

Schlittler will face a different lineup than the one both Fried and Rodon faced. It’s likely to be one that averages a 107 wRC+ and .178 ISO vs RHP, but just a 91 wRC+ over the last month of the season. They also strike out at a league average rate. Schlittler posted a slightly pronounced reverse split with LHBs below .300 and RHBs hitting for a .301 wOBA, but .348 xwOBA against him.

While Schlittler’s performance should earn him some leeway, I wouldn’t imagine Boone would give too much to a rookie in an elimination game, but all of the pitchers are in the same spot today.

Yankee Stadium is a perfectly neutral run environment, but with temperatures in the low 60s and dropping, it could mimic the lower run environments of Cleveland and Chicago here. Umpire Mark Ripperger is a neutral official, leaning ever so slightly towards the hitter side.

I have the Yankees moderately favored here, just below -150 with a total close to eight, which is in line with the market here. Right now, it looks like I’ll be playless on Thursday. Both pitchers plus Wells or Rice are near neutral in the running game, while only Luis Torrens was more efficient against base stealers than Narvaez. There are no pitch run value matchup standouts, though Rosario and Volpe skew extremely negative against Early’s small sample.

If the Dodgers win on Wednesday, Judge is the top bat on the board with Duran possibly second. The red hot Trevor Story is popping as my third ranked bat in this game and I’m not even counting post-season stats yet. Goldschimdt is a strong value against LHP out of the leadoff spot, but he may not see Early a second time. Speaking of, Early is the most expensive pitcher on DraftKings at $8K and a bit more expensively the second highest priced FanDuel arm, where Schlittler is the highest priced arm ($9.1K). Perhaps when your worried about everyone’s workload you go with the cheaper pitchers. Although, remember, we’re still using Wednesday pricing without a Thursday slate available yet.  

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

I’ll touch on this game briefly, as it does seem to be a potential reality with the Reds up 2-0 in the 3^rd, though the Dodgers are still favored and I can’t imagine them not getting to Zack Littell. They’ve already made some loud outs.

Andrew Abbott ran a 2.87 ERA with contact neutral estimators close to four and a half with an 80% strand rate. He did allow hard contact at a low rate (33.7%), which still led to 8% Barrels/BBE with just a 31.8 GB%. You’d think that would get him in some trouble in Cincinnati, but nope. Just an 8.3 HR/FB with around half his barrels leaving the park. Still, even his best estimator, a 3.57 xERA is more than two-thirds of a run worse than actual results.

From August on, Abbott did improve his K-BB (17.8% vs 15.5% on the season), but increased his ERA (4.21) with the strand rate dropping to 72.4%. That should probably be more the expectation. Abbott had a standard split with LHBs around a .270 wOBA and xwOBA and RHBs around league average with a 19 point higher xwOBA.  

Shohei Ohtani worked up to a season high six innings and 91 pitches in his final outing in Arizona, as the Dodgers needed to clinch the division, but has had more than a week off since. The good news is that he’s held is elite velocity while pitching deeper into games and posted a career best 28.2 K-BB% with just four barrels and a 34.8 HardHIt% over 47 innings.

The good news is that Ohtani is on par with all other pitchers now and may even have an advantage in a slate full of elimination games. Unfortunately, we can’t count on his Wednesday price tag not changing when moved to the mound. RHBs had some actual success against him (.295 wOBA), but that dropped to a .257 xwOBA.

This is a fairly neutral running spot with either pitcher or catcher, while only Ohtani pops with a strong pitch run value matchup against Abbott, though he’s usually not available as a hitter when he pitches. If he were, he’d be on par with Judge as the two top bats on the board. Dodger RHBs would have some value here. Abbott might be the last pitcher I’d consider rostering here.

I have the Dodgers as moderately strong favorites, larger (around -200) for the first five innings with a total around eight and you can probably forget everything I just wrote because just like that, we’re tied at two.