October Madness — Baseball Bench Coach

September 30th this week is Super Wednesday! Never before in baseball history have we had eight playoff games on the same date. Both the AL and NL’s 2020 bracket play in the 16-team MLB postseason tournament will be underway. For baseball fans, it’s your dream come true with games throughout the entire day. I mean, who needs NCAA’s March Madness when you have MLB’s October Madness! For the managers and players of the teams, the format provides numerous challenges, including first-round matchups against playoff opponents they have yet to meet all season. Get those scouting videos, pitching staffs, and in-game adjustments ready; it’s time for playoff baseball.

The schedule makers gave us regional play this year, 10 games against each league division opponent (40 games), and 20 interleague games against the five teams in the other league’s division counterpart. Interleague play itself is relatively new in baseball. From the time the first World Series was played between the American and National Leagues in 1903, MLB rejected various interleague play proposals, opting to maintain the tradition of World Series first-time matchups. After the players’ strike in 1994 (see “Shortened Season”, 06/08/2020), MLB finally turned to interleague play to renew the public’s interest in the game. I doubt though that MLB ever envisioned one-third of the season being interleague and no league games against non-regional opponents. It’s not been since 1968, the year before MLB began a 4-team playoff with two 5-game league championship series, that teams go into a first round playoff series with no game experience against their opponents.

There’s an old baseball adage, you can’t ever have enough pitching. That has been especially true in past playoffs, when the weather begins to chill, fly balls tend to stay in the park, and low scoring games predominate. It’s going to be interesting to see how pitching plays out in the 2020 postseason. When teams meet for the first time, hitters may be at a disadvantage if it is their first at-bats against a pitcher this season. Baseball has many stories of rookie pitchers who excel in the first half of the season on their initial sweep through the league, but suffer in the second half when batters have seen the pitcher’s stuff and can make adjustments. The story of Wayne Simpson’s season with the 1970 Reds stands out. Simpson came out of the ’70 gate by winning 13 of his first 14 decisions, including three complete game shutouts where he gave up only 1 hit, 2 hits, and 3 hits, respectively. Plagued by some arm stiffness, Simpson won only one other game in the second half of the season. He was truly the “one-hit” wonder (for you movie buffs, recall “That Thing You Do”), winning only 36 games in an eight season career.

Another pitching adage is that a starting pitcher is less effective the third time through the order. The numbers certainly back this up. On average, a pitcher’s OPS-against a lineup on a given day climbs from .705 to .731 to .771. To put that in more clear terms with the playoffs on the horizon, Jon Lester, whom the Cubs will count on as the #3 guy behind Darvish and Hendricks, has allowed hitters to maintain a .323 batting average in pitches 76-100 of his starts. With the 2020 playoff format featuring continuous play with no off days, it’s going to be difficult for managers to hide the short starts of their starters; staffs will be clearly taxed. Tampa, the #1 seed in the AL playoffs, is known for its starting pitchers’ short starts. Rays manager, Kevin Cash, said this about his strategy: “I pulled them quicker than anybody and probably took a lot of heat for it. Times through the order – we value that . . . we also value the eye test and how our pitchers are doing in that given start.”

The eye test is a theme I’ve seen in much recent, pre-playoff chatter. Cubs’ manager David Ross said last week: “It always helps just to get your eyes on a team and how they might play baseball.” Ross and all playoff managers are even more disadvantaged in 2020 because of the lack of in-person scouting. MLB has not allowed scouts to attend the games of possible playoff opponents due to COVID-19 precautions. Teams are relegated to scouting off videos and MLB-TV feeds. There is something to be said for seeing players in-person vs. having to rely on statistical analyisis. If you were like me during the early months of summer and took in some baseball movies, you can’t help but appreciate the storyline in the 2012 film, “Trouble with the Curve”. An old-time Braves scout, Gus Lobel, played by Clint Eastwood, could see and hear the hitting flaw of a highly touted, and statistically proven, star high school player, because Lobel scouted the player in-person.

On a Marquee Network television broadcast last weekend, I heard the announcers lamenting the recent passing of Gary Hughes, but I had no idea who he was. Then I read the story the next day. Hughes was a long-time baseball scout, serving as an evaluator for several MLB teams for the past 54 seasons. Early in his scouting career, he was the advance scout for some of the great Yankees teams. He was also a trusted Cubs scout and assistant in the 2000s. More than that, he was one of the founders of the Professional Baseball Scouts Foundation, an organization that raises funds for scouts who have lost their jobs or whose families were in need of financial assistance. While baseball mourns the loss of Hughes, it also is losing out right now on the information provided through the eyes of all of his brethren.

So where does this leave teams like the AL Central Indians and AL East Yankees who are matched in a key, opening round series, but are meeting for the first time this season? The players can always turn to in-game videos, correct? Actually not, thanks to the Astros 2017 shenanigans and according to MLB policy. (See “Sign Stealing”, 06/01/2020.) The prohibition against using in-game video has been at the center of controversy much of this season. Javier Baez, whose numbers are down, has been the most outspoken, pledging to keep raising the issue. In the words of Tampa skipper Cash: “Video is what makes us good. It helps us learn. It helps us coach. It helps us attack. And it’s been taken away from us because of a couple teams’ stupid choices.” While it is unlikely for the MLB to now change the policy for the playoffs, the issue seems to have some offseason momentum for the MLB to reexamine.

Getting hot during September has been a predictor of past, playoff success. Need we even mention the Nationals big push last season. (See “Time Travel”, 11/04/2019.) This season it seems more like a yo-yo each week with no real, prolonged streaks. The Indians did make a big push in the last week with four walk-off wins behind the big bats in the middle of their order. Cleveland could be a team to watch. Terrific offense has been part of the Braves September story too. In a game against the Marlins, Atlanta set an NL record for runs in the modern era, winning 29-3. Of all the eye-catching Braves performances that night, none was better than Adam Duvall’s, driving in 9 runs from the seventh slot in the order and hitting three home runs in a game for the second time in eight days. The Braves lineup of late has indeed flashed big numbers, but will it translate to October success? I doubt Atlanta was hoping for its first round match-up against the Reds with Cincinnati starting Bauer, Castillo, and Gray in the 3-game series.

Prior to the start of the 2020 MLB season, prognosticators established the Dodgers the NL favorites at 13/4 odds and the AL race to be won by the Yankees (7/2). Oh yes, MLB’s executive offices would certainly like another classic World Series matchup between the two storied franchises. While the two teams are certainly in the mix in the 16-team field, there are also some preseason long shots who are in the playoffs and might make a run — Reds (22:1), White Sox (30:1), Padres (50:1), and Blue Jays (200:1). And the biggest surprise of them all, the playoff bound Miami Marlins were at the very bottom of the preseason forecast at 500 to 1! Truly anything can happen in the next few weeks with 3 and 5-game series looming. As Anthony Rizzo summed up: “You’ve got to make adjustments instantly. There’s no waiting for the game to be over. It’s in-game, on-the-fly adjustments.” It’s October Madness!

Until next week,

your Baseball Bench Coach