Tuesday 10/7 ALDS Game Three Thoughts & Analysis

Mariners @ Tigers

Logan Gilbert would be a Cy Young candidate had he not missed more than the entire month of May. Finishing with 25 starts and 131 innings, Gilbert is third in K-BB (26.5%) among pitchers with at least 130 innings pitched, while managing contact at about a league average rate.

Despite the clear best pitch modeling on the board, it was still the only estimator above Gilber’s 3.44 ERA, which nearly matches his 3.35 FIP, but is more than one-third of a run above all other estimators. It’s more than a bit surprising that 20 of Gilbert’s 28 barrels left the park, including eight of 10 at home. Even with the roof open, Seattle tops out at an average 95 park home run factor for LHBs on average.

For all you hear about how hard it is to hit in Detroit, it’s a perfectly neutral run environment on average and that includes neutral home run factors for both left and right-handed batters too. In that respect, it’s a significant park downgrade for Gilbert, but we’ll talk soon about why I might not be on Tuesday afternoon (or evening).

Gilbert had no real discernable split with RHBs 31 points higher by wOBA, but 10 points lower by xwOBA with batters from either side of the plate between .265 and .296 of either metric. A balanced Detroit lineup with five LHBs should have no effect on him.

We do also have to talk about the home/road splits because he does pitch his home games in the most negative run environment in baseball. While Gilbert allowed 60% of his 20 home runs on the road this year, his K-BB dropped even more significantly, from 33.5% to 20% on the road. That road mark alone would drop Gilbert all the way to the 16^th best pitcher among 95 with 130 innings pitched. In other words, it’s still elite and of no real concern. For his career, Gilbert has actually evenly split his home runs with a 5.5 point lower K-BB on the road (18.2%) than at home (23.7%).

I find it an interesting decision for the Tigers to push Flaherty over Mize in the division series because while I currently believe the latter to be the slightly better pitcher at this point, which means I believe they may intentionally be giving up some advantage to the Mariners here, but that’s not necessarily true and I like it for two reasons:

First, while I would rather have Mize on the mound if it were an elimination game, I think Flaherty is the more volatile, which sometimes works in Detroit’s favor when he hits his upside, which is still higher than Mize’s (though the latter’s strikeout rate has been rising).

Second, it gives them a bigger advantage with Mize against Miller, who’s also pretty volatile and struggles on the road. You wouldn’t want to be down 2-1 and have Flaherty hit his floor against Miller.

Flaherty finished 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.

An 18.9 K-BB% suggests he remains 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 Detroit’s defense allowed, 70.5 LOB%). Contact neutral estimators were in the upper threes. Flaherty’s 4.78 Bot ERA is in stark contrast to a 100 Pitching+, but he’s easily worst on the board under the Bot measurement.

Pitching on normal four day rest, Flaherty started the deciding game in Cleveland on Thursday, lasting 17 batters (four strikeouts, three walks) with one run allowed on three hits. Five of 11 batted balls were on the ground. Flaherty’s 94.3 mph average velocity in that start was his best average mark of the season, perhaps because he knew he would be throwing fewer pitches. It was 1.4 mph above his season average. He did gain a bit of spin on all his pitches, but no additional iVB on a decent fastball (16 inches). Just seven of Flaherty’s 74 pitches were swung through, but eight of 23 fastballs were called strikes, giving the pitch a 48 CSW% (called + swung and missed strikes). In fact, Flaherty got a very healthy 21.6% of his pitches called strikes.

Flaherty is likely to face five left-handed Mariners and had a near 50 point split with LHBs above a .330 wOBA and xwOBA and RHBs below .300.

We’ve already noted that Comerica is a perfectly neutral park by both run environment and home run factors for left and right-handed batters. However, we may have some weather issues. The game is scheduled to start below 70 degrees and potentially end below 60 degrees, along with near double digit winds. There’s also a strong threat of rain earlier in the afternoon, which could push this game back some and make it even more pitcher friendly. In addition, John Tumpane leans every so slightly pitcher friendly. 

Even (or especially) on the road, the Seattle offense trumps Detroit’s, while they clearly have the better pitching in his game (starter and bullpen). Detroit gains a bit back being at home with better defense and base running.

In the end, I project Seattle as a slightly road favorite both for the game (-120 to -125) and the first five innings (-110 to -115) with a total around 7.5 that may not be fully accounting for the weather effects. This has me closely aligned with the market.

Blue Jays @ Yankees

Shane Bieber was impressive enough in rehab for the Guardians to receive something of value for him in July and that carried over to a 36.6 K-BB%, averaging 92.7 mph on his fastball (a number he hasn’t averaged in a season since 2021) in his first two starts. Bieber was also allowing a 60% hard hit rate with three barrels, but when only 15 batters put the ball in play in two starts, it’s negotiable.

However, while the hard hit rate continued to remain high (44.9% with 12.4% Barrels/BBE), Bieber’s K-BB dropped to a league average 12.7% over his last five starts with his fastball dropping slightly (92.5 mph), still well above any season since 2021.

Pitch modeling, which was better than a 4.00 Bot ERA and 100 Pitching+ in his first two starts, dropped to 4.59 and 97 over his last five as well.

As a result, both Bieber and Rodon have very league average pitch modeling with Bieber’s 3.57 ERA agreeing with his contact neutral estimators (3.52 SIERA, 3.35 xFIP, 3.42 xERA), despite contact inclusive estimators much higher (4.47 FIP, 4.57 xERA). How this is possible is eight of 14 barrels leaving the park for a 21.1 HR/FB with just a .245 BABIP and 84.3 LOB%. Beiber’s best BABIP came in the pandemic shortened season (.267), but has never otherwise been below .287 and his hard hit rate has been worse than league average, every season of his career after his rookie campaign.

An interesting aspect is that Bieber has allowed a 24 point career standard split, occasionally getting  himself into trouble with LHBs, but this year posted a massive reverse split with LHBs below a .290 wOBA and xwOBA, but RHBs more than 100 points higher. With increases cutter and changeup usage, perhaps this would be the expected effect, if he didn’t still only throw those pitches 25.5% of the time combined. His 18.6% curve usage is also his highest rate since 2021 though. Now we’re at three platoon busting pitches at nearly 45% usage.

If the reverse split thing is real, it would certainly help him in this spot because he will face six LHBs plus the pumpkin Aaron Judge turns into in October (I kid). I’m still a bit skeptical though and do have concern about his slipping skills and elevated hard hit rate.

Carlos Rodon was a game two Wild Card starter, giving him an extra fifth day of rest. He finished up his season with the worst version of a quality start (three in six), the first time he’d allowed more than two runs in 10 starts, but his 19.4 K-BB% over his last four starts may be the more important number after a 6.7 K-BB% over his previous seven. This was certainly the best of Rodon’s three Yankee seasons from a contact profile perspective with his first hard hit rate below 40% (38.9%) and his first single digit barrel rate (7.5%), even if his 16.5 K-BB% is 2.3 points lower than last year.

As you might expect, Rodon’s 3.09 ERA is a bit of a farce (228 BABIP, seven of 74 runs unearned), though, aside from league average pitch modeling, no other estimators actually reach four. Rodon had you standard LHP splits, yet holding batters from either side of the plate below a .295 wOBA and xwOBA. He’ll likely face the same Toronto lineup as Fried did. An average 115 wRC+ and .175 ISO is still far below what the projected Yankee lineup averaged against RHP this year (.127, .246).

Rodon did get through 25 Red Sox in the Wild Card game, despite the Yankees being in an elimination spot. He struck out six with three walks and just a 21.4 GB%. Despite a fastball in line with his season aveage velocity, Rodon did lose an inch of iVB and I do wonder if that was a headwind situation at Yankee Stadium (something to read up on, as it or tailwinds play a part in certain parks, Yankee Stadium being one of them and it's more pronounced in the post-season when weather changes). Rodon garnered nine of his 10 swings and misses (91 pitches) on 22 swings against his secondary pitches. 

Temperatures are expected to remain in the low 70s during the game with a potential double digit wind we’ll have to wait to find the direction of. Jordan Baker is even closer to neutral than Trumpane, leaning barely hitter friendly. Yankee Stadium has the same 100 park run factor as Comerica, but it’s obviously one of the more power friendly parks in the league. What might surprise people is the home run factors are nearly equal for left and right-handed batters, probably because Judge and his right-handed friends have become so proficient at poking cheap shots the other way.

Although the Yankee offense still has the edge here, you have to really respect what the Blue Jays have done to both LHP this year and overall in this series. It’s not a large edge for the home team. I have both starting pitching and bullpens close to even. The Yankees are at home, but the Blue Jays are the better base running team and the best defensive team in the league.

All of that gets me to a line between even and -105ish for the Yankees for both F5 and full game. Because it’s the Yankees, the line is a bit elevated and action worthy at +124. I also think either pitcher might have trouble holding the opposing offense down and will split 1.5 units three ways here.

TOR +124 (FD) 0.5u
Over 7.5 (-110) FD 0.5u
TOR o3.5 (100) FD 0.5u

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Bullpen stats L30 days (will start using post-season numbers after everyone has at least three games)...

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.