Four MLB storylines through two rounds of post-season action

Sportsnet's Arash Madani previews the upcoming NLCS between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Atlanta Braves, which should feature stellar pitching and dynamite offence.

Hard to believe, we’re already halfway through the MLB post-season. Of the 16 original participants, 12 are no longer playing, while four remain: the Los Angeles Dodgers, Atlanta Braves, Houston Astros and Tampa Bay Rays.

The lack of off-days between games made this October’s division series fly by, and the pair of championship series will be no different. Each will be completed within a week, regardless of how many games they last. In only 10 days, the first pitch of the World Series will be thrown.

That’s pandemic baseball, and for fans of the sport it’s made October even more exciting than it normally is. Every day brings fresh intrigue, fresh drama, fresh storylines. Here are four notable ones to emerge from the first half of MLB’s postseason.

We ended up where we thought we would

With the regular season schedule shortened by 102 games, an expanded postseason field welcoming more than half the league’s teams and a raging pandemic threatening to impact player availability at any moment, most figured 2020 would produce a plethora of surprising results across MLB. Baseball is always unpredictable. But the conditions this year were expected to make it especially so.

And yet, here we are with the Rays, Astros, Dodgers and Braves as the final teams standing. Not a sleeper, underdog or Cinderella story among them.

Let’s look back at the pre-season ZIPS projections via FanGraphs. Here are the 11 teams that predictive model figured would win 32 games or more this season:

1. Los Angeles Dodgers (38 wins)

2. New York Yankees (37)

T-3. Houston Astros (35)

T-3. Minnesota Twins (35)

T-3. Tampa Bay Rays (35)

T-4. Cleveland (34)

T-4. Washington Nationals (34)

T-5. Atlanta Braves (33)

T-5. Oakland A’s (33)

T-6. Chicago Cubs (32)

T-6. San Diego Padres (32)

The only team on that list to miss the playoffs altogether is the Washington Nationals. And the only division series participant not on that list is the Miami Marlins. Turns out, the 2020 MLB season was extremely predictable. And who would’ve predicted that?

The Houston Astros are still good

Oh, you forgot? It was only a week-and-a-half ago that baseball fans were basking in the schadenfreude of Houston’s struggles, watching MLB’s most-hated band of cheats limp into the postseason with a sub-.500 record, including a 10-17 September. Justin Verlander was lost for the season due to Tommy John surgery. Jose Altuve was struggling offensively for the first time in his career. Carlos Correa had lost more than 200 points off his 2019 OPS.

Now, six games later, the Astros have cruised through to the ALCS, going 5-1 with a plus-18 run differential while leaving two division winners in their wake. The Astros have proven once again it doesn’t matter how you play in August or September, but how you’re playing come October.

After holding the Minnesota Twins to two runs in two wild card games, Houston’s offence exploded against the Oakland A’s in the division series, scoring nine runs or more in each of their three wins. The Astros have now hit .281/.353/.486 as a team this postseason, led by Correa (he’s 10-for-20 with four homers, one less than he hit in 58 games during the regular season) and Altuve, whose .974 OPS is nearly 350 points higher than his regular season mark.

Framber Valdez, whose under-appreciated regular season will likely earn him down-ballot Cy Young votes, has been spectacular, allowing two runs over 12 innings. Rookies Jose Urquidy and Cristian Javier have been strong in short stints, reminding everyone of the talent Houston still has brimming from its minor-league system. And Zack Greinke has been his usual commanding self while competing through lingering soreness in his pitching arm.

The Astros came into 2020 projected to be one of the winningest teams in baseball for a reason. And maybe they would’ve been if the season had gone 162 games rather than 60. All we know for certain is it was far too early to celebrate Houston’s demise after a sub-par two months of regular season baseball. And that whether they know what pitch is coming or not, the Astros franchise is still as talent-laden as any.

Postseason pitching strategy continues to evolve

You can disagree with the strategy. You can deplore the direction the game is going. You can lament over-managing and front-office meddling. But you can’t deny that postseason pitching staff usage has changed dramatically in MLB over the last several seasons, as franchises seek to deploy arms in more creative, optimal ways. And this postseason we’ve seen it more than ever.

Both the San Diego Padres and Chicago White Sox used 9 pitchers to get through 9 innings in the wild card round. The Toronto Blue Jays piggybacked starters Matt Shoemaker and Robbie Ray, while The Astros have done the same with Urquidy and Javier. The Yankees used Deivi Garcia as an opener. The Dodgers have lifted Walker Buehler after only four innings in each of his postseason starts, replacing him with another starter in Julio Urias or Dustin May. In its Game 5 victory over the Yankees on Friday, the Rays used four pitchers, each facing no fewer than seven and no more than nine batters.

They’re all doing it. And that means that unless you’re watching the 2019 Astros, a team that featured three likely Hall-of-Famers atop its rotation, it’s probably unwise to expect a starter to see a third trip through the opposition’s batting order. Outside of the small handful of workhorse aces pitching in today’s game, most starters are exactly what their title suggests — the guy who starts the game. It doesn’t mean he’ll still be pitching come the middle of it.

It’s the natural evolution of a game that grows more data-driven by the season. MLB franchises didn’t invest millions building out robust baseball research and analytics departments not to use them. Clubs don’t spend untold amounts of time and effort gathering and analyzing data not to have it impact their decision making.

If anything, we’ll only see more creative pitching deployments going forward. Just as infields and outfields have grown increasingly position-less with the ubiquity of defensive shifting, pitching staffs are evolving to rely less and less on rigid roles. You don’t have to like it. But it’s not going away.

Emotion is good for the game

Trevor Bauer strutting off the mound after pitching out of a jam. Fernando Tatis Jr. flipping his bat into orbit. Correa watching his latest bomb fly and yelling as he rounds first base. Cody Bellinger stealing a home run and pimping it all the way back to the dugout while his pitcher sends equipment flying:

Surely by now we can all admit baseball is better this way. This postseason, players are competing with as much emotion as ever, jawing with opposing dugouts and loudly celebrating triumphs within their own.

Who’s not a fan of this? Let athletes be themselves, express themselves and have as much fun as they want. It only makes the game more enjoyable to watch. The last thing 2020 baseball needs is more cynicism. Exactly what it needs is big personalities creating big moments on the biggest stage.

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