Throughout the early stages of baseball’s fall ball season, there was one recurring thought. Even the manufactured wild-card phase, with all of its impurities, provided the message, with one favorite (Cleveland) surviving despite scoring only three runs in two games (24 innings).
Four of the nine games were shutouts, one of which went 15 innings. There was a six-run rally in the ninth inning and another furious late-inning comeback. Plus, there was the drama of two future Hall of Fame teammates retiring together as their team became one of the upset victims.
The Division Series games were equally dramatic. The Phillies beat the defending champion Braves. The Padres eliminated the Dodgers, the winningest (111) team in the game. The defending American League champion Houston Astros won three straight games against the upstart Seattle Mariners, each courtesy of one swing of the bat. The added bonus came when the vaunted Yankees, the team with the most rings, escaped a 2-1 hole to dismiss the Guardians, a team too inexperienced to advance and too young to know any better.
This is what baseball fanatics, crazies if you insist, sign up for — great games that can endure gimmicks but don’t need them. The kind of games that don’t need pitch clocks, time clocks, artificial regulations or whatever else tickles the fancy of those who don’t know the difference between a sacrifice bunt or sacrificial lamb — but can tell you how to speed up a game that doesn’t operate with a clock.
Once they “fix” baseball, maybe they can do something about those “60-minute” football games that too often drag past four hours. But I digress.
What we saw leading up to the two series that will actually account for the most drama
was as good as it gets. The kind of games that didn’t need to be restricted by the number of batters a relief pitcher has to face, or the number of throws he’s allowed to make with runners on base.
And Lord knows, they certainly didn’t need StatCom, PitchCom, VeloCom, et al to tell us the games were meaningful, impactful, and yes, heaven forbid, exciting. With the outcome hanging on every pitch, even games that go scoreless for 15 or 18 innings can be riveting.
We can only hope there is more of the same coming up.
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When Yankees manager Aaron Boone moved Aaron Judge into the leadoff spot in the batting order with less than a month to go in the regular season, it appeared to be a courtesy move — one aimed at getting his slugger as many at-bats as possible as he chased Roger Maris’ American League home record of 61.
But when that lineup stayed intact at the start of postseason play you had to wonder if it was a purely strategic decision — or if analytics had taken over. The bottom line was, in the last week of the season, before he eventually broke the record, Judge was guaranteed to bat at least once with the bases empty. Only rarely did he bat with runners on base, usually drawing an intentional walk.
It stayed that way through the first two games of the series against Cleveland, with the Guardians winning Game 2, before Boone restored order by moving Judge back to his customary No. 2 spot. It might not have been a determining factor, but it probably wasn’t coincidence, either. My guess is Judge’s days as a leadoff hitter are over.
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Those who have been complaining that the AL East’s claims of superiority are propaganda may have a legitimate case. In fact, it would be hard to argue with the fact that the National League now owns right to “Beast of the East” claim with the third-place Philadelphia Phillies only one step away from the World Series.
And over on the “left coast,” it is the San Diego Padres, second-place finishers in the NL West, saying “don’t forget about us.” As such, the defending champion (Braves) and the “best team in baseball” (Dodgers) are on the sidelines.
It doesn’t seem possible, but can a team be better suited for a 162-game schedule than a playoff series? Hmm.
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The Atlanta Braves and Seattle Mariners are following an example set by the Cleveland Indians in the last years of the 20th century by signing young potential stars to long-term contracts that offer security for the player and a degree of stability for the team. It’s a novel, but not new, way to control salaries during the early peak years of a player’s career.
The most recent examples are the extensions the Braves gave rookie sensation Spencer Strider that will net him $75 million during the next six years, and the 12-year, $209.3 million pact the Mariners guaranteed for Julio Rodriguez. Bargain or gamble? Probably a little of both — for both.
Here is my admittedly amateurish comparison of how Strider’s contract, with an average annual yield of $12.5 million, would have played out without intervention in the next six years, remembering all estimates based are based on his outstanding first-year performance:
- Two more years at roughly the minimum salary of $700,000, for a total of $1.4 million
- First year of arbitration: $7.5 million
- Second year arbitration: $15 million
- Third year arbitration $20 million
- The first year of a free-agent contract: $30 million
Those numbers total $73.9 million. The six-year contract Strider signed sends the pitcher to free agency after his age-29 season, when the Braves will have the best information as to whether to pull out or go all-in on another contract.
The deal the Mariners put together for Rodriguez is more complicated, but the formula is much the same, only more frontloaded. The total average salary works out to $17.441 million, with the first seven worth a total of $119.3 million. The big difference here is that the Mariners hold club options at $18 million for the remainder of the contract, which would run through 2034, when Rodriguez will be 33 years old.
Bargain or gamble? On whose part? Your call. It’s way beyond my pay grade.
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Coming back from a stint on the injured list, Strider was something of a surprise choice to start the third game of the Braves’ Division Series against the Phillies. He was spectacular for two innings before coming undone in a bizarre set of circumstances in the third inning.
After a walk gave the Phillies their first baserunner and, after a strikeout, Strider seemed to get preoccupied with No. 9 hitter Bryson Stott at the plate and uncorked a wild pickoff throw, allowing the runner to advance to third.
Trying to preserve a scoreless game, Strider then got involved in a nine-pitch duel with Stott, during which analyst John Smoltz all but predicted the outcome. After a series of foul balls as Stott tried to catch up with Strider’s fastball, Smoltz pointed out that the inclination to try something different might result in speeding up the bat, which is exactly what happened as Stott doubled into the right field corner to break a scoreless tie.
It was the first, but not last time, Smoltz was remindful of Jim Palmer’s work on Orioles telecasts, pointing out how tendencies often tend to go the wrong way. For Strider, the throw to first may have unnerved him, but it was the pitch to Stott that sealed the deal. An intentional walk and three-run homer put an unfortunate ending to what had been a promising start.
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Quick observation: San Diego skipper Bob Melvin, part of the Orioles’ catching caravan in the “Why Not?” era, has quietly become one of the game’s most respected managers. Both he and Phillies’ Rob Thomson, who recently had his “interim” tag replaced by a two-year contract, fly under the radar, so to speak, but will be worth watching in the National League Championship Series.
Both appear inclined to push starting pitchers to their maximum, hardly the rule in today’s game, and it seemed evident during their respective Division Series victories. It will be interesting to watch these two juggle their staffs in what should be a compelling NLCS.
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The two oddly scheduled off days in the ALCS looked like a favorable scenario for the Yankees, but a pair of subsequent postponements and Cleveland’s early jump start that led to Gerrit Cole and Nestor Cortes, the Yankees’ top two starting pitchers, starting four of the five games, created havoc for the Bronx Bombers, a World Series favorite before the season started but more of a long shot at this stage of the proceedings.
I’m not an oddsmaker, but if it were my call I’d have the Yankees with the longest odds of the four remaining teams. The Astros are clearly the best team left, and I’d be shocked if it took more than five games for them to move past the Yankees and get back to the World Series for the third time in the last six years and win for the first time since the garbage can year of 2017.
Jim Henneman can be reached at JimH@pressboxonline.com
Photo Credit: Colin Murphy/PressBox