Thursday 10/16 NLCS G3/ALCS G4 Thoughts & Analysis

Brewers @ Dodgers

On four days rest, I’d have a hard time believing anything the Brewers do down 2-0 in Los Angeles wouldn’t heavily involved Jacob Misiorowski at this point. At this point, considering Jose Quintana being the other bulk option, it’s probably just best to pray for the upside of volatility with the Miz.

That upside includes striking out 31.3% of the major league batters he’s faced during the regular and post-season so far. The downside would be the 11% walk rate and nine home runs over 73 innings. More than half of his 14 barrels have left the park with a 37% hard hit rate, which tells us the contact profile is not really an issue at all so far.

Misiorowski threw three and four inning stints against the Cubs, striking out seven with four hits, two walks and a run (solo HR). In a shorter stint in the first outing, including amped up adrenaline, Misiorowski was up 2.2 mph (101.5 mph) on the 35 fastballs he threw, generating half of his eight whiffs on that pitch, the other four on just 14 sliders. He was only up a mph (100.3) in his second outing, throwing more sliders (23) than fastballs (17), despite five of his nine whiffs on the latter and three of his other four on the 14 curveballs he threw.

With batters from either side of the plate between a .275 and .320 wOBA and xwOBA against him this year, Misiorowski had a standard 42 point split by actual wOBA, but a 21 point reverse split by xwOBA. The projected Dodger LU against a RHP (which he may not see here, depending on what the Dodgers think the Brewers are doing) averaged a 123 wRC+ and .204 ISO against them. This lineup has averaged a 112 wRC+ in the post-season.

The 90.1 innings Tyler Glasnow threw for the Dodgers this year are his least since 2022, but third most since 2019. However, his 17.2 K-BB% is worst since his early Pittsburgh years. A 37.4 HardHit% was one of the best marks of his career.

The pitch modeling is absolutely terrible. His fastball usage, velocity and pitch model grading all declined this year, but it was still an above average pitch. He did pick up an average sinker this year, but the largest decline in pitch grading were his secondaries (slider, curveball), which were both well below average by either PitchingBot or Pitching+ standards. Overall declines in command (47 BotCmd, 91 Location+) were a major reason why.

The good news is that Glasnow doesn’t have another estimator reaching four with a 3.24 xERA nearly matching his 3.19 ERA. Additional estimators were a bit higher (.225 BABIP). Glasnow faced eight Phillies, striking out and walking two each in 1.2 innings of relief and then struck out eight of six two-hit innings in his only post-season start thus far to put the Phillies away. He was up a full mph in that start, averaging 96.7 mph or better for just the third time all year. In fact, he has no other starts averaging above 96.1 mph on his fastball. The pitch generated seven whiffs on just 10 swings. A full 40% of Glasnow’s 83 pitches were either called or swung through strikes.

According to wOBA, Glasnow had just a three point split with batters from either side of the plate within two points of .265. Statcast opens that up a bit more with LHBs (.308) better than RHBs by 36 points of xwOBA.

The Brewers have not hit well this post-season with a 77 wRC+ through seven games, though the projected lineup against Glasnow averages 109 and they do travel well (110 Road wRC+ this year). However, at an average 100 wRC+ and .150 ISO vs RHP this year, the Dodger lineup is still vastly superior.

Temperatures expected to around 70 degrees in Los Angeles, standard LA weather for this time of year, but it should be noted that this could be one of those shadow games with a 3pm west coast start time. There will probably be ideal conditions under which to employ Misiorowski. The presiding James Hoye does lean a bit hitter friendly, but is not the most hitter friendly umpire on the slate.

I have Misiorowksi and Glasnow almost dead even, a bit above three and a half. The Dodgers do have a pretty sizeable offensive edge, but it may be their only advantage in this game. The Brewers are a really good defensive and base running team, while the Dodgers are just slightly above average in each area. Despite having played the most post-season games to this point, the Dodger bullpen still has estimators a half run worse than any other post-season pen and that moves to almost a full run if you remove the two games the Cincinnati bullpen pitched against these Dodgers. The Milwaukee pen hasn’t been great and may be a bit overworked, but have still been a run better than the Dodgers. However, the home team for this game has found a brilliant way to navigate their bullpen issues. Don’t use it. Starters have pitched 17 of the 18 innings in this series, but I wouldn’t expect Glasnow to make it a trifecta.

I do have a healthy total a bit around nine here and a bit above four and a half for the F5, though I would be flexible on that due to the uncertainty of Milwaukee’s pitching plans and the shadow potential. Even with that flexibility, I’m well above the actual total. With the assumption that Misiorowski will be throwing around four innings, I’d make the Dodgers slightly F5 favorites (around -105) and the full game perfectly even. The actual price (+164) is so far past that, that it’s worth the risk and probably fine even if Misiorowski doesn’t see the mound (unless the Brewers just leave Quintana in there to be battered).

MIL +164 FD 1u
Over 7.5 DK (-115) – 1.15u

Blue Jays @ Mariners

While Max Scherzer hasn’t pitched in a major league contests since September 24^th, he has been staying ready by pitching simulated games of more than 90 pitches. That said, I’m not sure the Blue Jays are expecting much depth here and potentially down 3-0, he won’t be given much of a leash.

After a long IL stint took away April, May and almost all of June, Scherzer quickly found a groove with a 26.2 K-BB% over a six start stretch starting with his second game back. He then dipped to 8.4% over his next five, but did finish up with a 17.1% mark over his last four starts. Still, a 16.5 K-BB% was his worst mark since 2011 in Detroit. His 93.6 mph average velocity wasn’t his best, but still fine when compared to his career average (93.8). Where Scherzer was at his career worst was a 38.2 HardHit%, which is still right around league average, but with another career worst (27.1 GB%, five points below 2024’s previous career worst), Scherzer allowed 12.4% Barrels/BBE. With increased contact overall and increased elevated contact, that’s 31 barrels over 85 innings. In fact, his 8.7% of the batters he faced (not 8.7% of the batters who put the ball in play or made contact) barreled Scherzer up this season and that is the main concern. Or, at least it would be in almost any other park. It’s the reason Scherzer’s 4.99 FIP and 4.79 xERA nearly matched his 5.19 ERA. A 4.29 SIERA was his only estimator below four and a half. A 73.8 LOB% was also his worst since 2011.

LHBs blasted Scherzer for a .360 wOBA and .375 xwOBA this year, while RHBs were around average (.329/.307). Expecting the same Seattle lineup that was posted for the first two games, they’ve averaged a healthy 127 wRC+ and .205 ISO v RHP this year, but just a 77 wRC+ overall this post-season.

No matter what numbers you look at, the pertinent thing that keeps popping out at you concerning Luis Castillo is that LHBs had a .405 wOBA (7.4 K-BB%) against him on the road. In fact, all batters had a .356 wOBA and 12.9 K-BB% against him on the road. Those numbers changed to .258 and 17.9% at home, where even LHBs had a reasonable .304 wOBA against him.

This illustrates just how crucial the park was to any success Castillo had this year. His overall 15.6 K-BB% was the second worst of his career. His 10.4% Barrels/BBE and 46.4 HardHit% were both easily career worsts. Castillo’s average fastball was 95.6 mph, 0.6 mph below last season, which was 0.7 mph less than the year before, which was 0.8 mph below the season before that. That’s 2.2 mph since 2022 and you could certainly see it in his overall and fastball pitch modeling decline each year.

The Mariners were smart to not let Castillo pitch on the road this post-season and yet he still has an equal 17.4 K% and 17.4 BB%, though the 15 batted balls against him have only produced one hit. Seven of the 15 were hard hit. He was up half a mph in his start against the Tigers and even generated 16 whiffs nearly evenly distributed among four pitches with a 41 CSW% (called plus swinging strike) on his sinker of all pitches.

While the Jays have been lining up five LHBs, their most potent bats (Springer/Vlad and even Kirk) bat from the right-hand side. Mostly due to their potency in the Yankee series, this projected lineup has averaged a 139 wRC+ in the post-season and a 111 wRC+ with a .182 ISO vs RHP this season.

With temperatures in the 50s, I’d expect a closed roof in Seattle, turning the most negative run environment in the league even more pitcher friendly (77 Park Run Factor Roof Closed via Statcast 3yr). However, Alfonso Marquez is one of the more hitter friendly umpires in the game.

The lineups are both above average and evenly matched, though I have to give Castillo a two-thirds run edge on this version of Scherzer. Neither team has run the bases well, while Seattle has been the better post-season bullpen and that seems to check out. Where Toronto has their only real edge here is defense. It’s a massive difference, but not entirely enough to make up for Seattle’s edges.

I make the home team smallish favorites (-110 to -115) for the F5 and full game with a total just above seven. The park effect is so much that I’d have it near nine in a neutral park without even considering the umpire. Game Three is currently in the first inning and we won’t have numbers for Game Four until its completed.

Post-season bullpen stats...

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.