As we neared the end of the second round of the Extended Playoffs for Major League Baseball, we thought it would be a good time to delve into what we noticed in this year’s extraordinary post-season period. In some ways, Baseball Braces is similar to the previous Octobers game – but it’s also full of surprises. So what have we learned? What does all this mean for the world leagues and series?
The Dodgers are the favorites
The Los Angeles Dodgers have established themselves as a central force over the past decade. They won Eight in a row Division titles and advanced to two of the last three World Championships. Yet they entered October with Sun The longest droughts for a world championship title in majorsThey haven’t won one since 1988. But that might be their year.
Friday play entry, Our model Team Dodgers have a 54 percent chance of winning it all. No other team has a better chance than 14%. For comparison since then We returned Our Elo Ratings In 2015, no other team had a greater than 34% chance of winning the World Series at a similar point in the post-season period (either entering or early in the Division Series Tour).
Team Dodgers have few real weaknesses, especially if rookie Walker Buehler can exceed their abilities. Blister issues. (He said he “felt relieved” after his start on Tuesday, but he struggled to drive.) Club ranks The third player in the center wins over the substitution, V In the war monument. They boosted up their star-studded list last winter add Than MVP competitor Mookie Betts, but they also developed a lot of local talent – success stories like Tony Gonsolin, who started out as a pick in the ninth round of St Mary’s College and was one of the best The best appetizers this chapter. The Dodgers have the stars and depth to win everything.
The Bullpens continue to gain work, but more depth is required for these qualifiers
In recent years, junior shooters have generally taken less and less action. In general, this is true to a greater degree In the postseason. In this post-season, novice shooters are starting to represent again fewer pitches, throwing less than half of all pitches (49 percent), Which is the least post-season engagement during the Pitch Track era. Teams are less willing to let beginners dive into games and increasingly switch to unconventional strategies. For example, in the second game in their split series, the New York Yankees chose to use it opener (Did not work).
Before the qualifiers started, we asked if he was Less restful days on this postseason It could mean that teams will find it more difficult to count on the best shooters, which should benefit teams with deeper employees. Four teams – the Dodgers, the Houston Astros, the Tampa Bay Rays and the St. Louis Cardinals – Qualifying with Nine or more painkillers have an ERA + score of 110 or better, Which means these shooters were performing at least 10 percent better than the league average in terms of stopping a run. Two of those teams (Dodgers and Astros) advanced to the League Series championship, while a third team (Rise) is One win away.
Extended Playoffs are equivalent to smaller teams
MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred said last month that He is in favor of having aspects of the expanded qualifiers permanent. he added:
“… people love to use arches and like to choose who will come through these arches. I think there is a lot to be commended for. It is one of those changes that I hope will become a permanent part of our landscape.”
If the Extended Qualifiers were like the NCAA Championship, the Miami Marlins were Cinderella, You advance to the second round. While the Marlins finished above .500 (31-29), our Elo reviews ranked them as Below average team: Outperformed 41 times in Ordinary ClassRank 27th place in War Monument And the 26th at War Player Center. Two clubs with Losing Records Milwaukee Brewers and AstrosMake postseason. The expanded fields bring in excitement and extra TV money, but the trade-off is that the post-season reach bar will drop when it comes to the team’s performance in the regular season of 162 games. (It is worth noting that, other than the follow-up to the 1981 season that shortened the strike, the MLB playoffs have never shrunk in size – I just slept.)
Postseason game is increasingly a game of two strokes
Two counts strikes It gradually increased in the era of stadium tracking: The number of pitches thrown in two strikes has exceeded 29 percent in each of the past four seasons. As the speed continues To rise, The speculators swing and lose more and more, and Offense balls increased. The number of offending balls exceeded the balls in play in 2017, the number of balls struck out of play more than the balls in play for the fourth. Respectively season this year. And the The percentage of two-strike pitches is usually greater in the post-season periodThe quality of teams and shooters is generally better.
This post-season, 30.3 percent of stadiums came with two strikes, the second-largest share in the era of field tracking (trailing just the 31.6 percent mark in the last post-season period). So that should make that two strokes more important than ever. On the wild card tour, Four of the top five teams In a two-hit weighted average, six of the top eight advanced to the Division Series Round. In the Ordinary Class, Braves, Dodgers, Padres, and Yankees had four of the top five overall weighted scores on base, and four of the top five with Two hits. While these teams may simply have more talented squads, six of the nine teams with the smallest gap between wOBA total and two-stroke wOBA made the post-season. In an era of more hitting and two-stroke counts, putting the ball into play is an inefficiency in the market.
The rays of Tampa Bay keep the stars spotted
Rays has a long-standing reputation as a Underdog innovator. They lived up to that reputation, and extracted a lot of value from the players Gained in recent trades On her way to The best record in the American League. They did it again with one of the rising stars in the post-season: defender Randy Arosarina.
The 25-year-old was barely a household name when Rays acquired him from St. Louis in A. Trade again in January. But this season he made his debut with 176 World Rally Championships + more than 76 board appearances, which would have taken first place VI In the major disciplines if he has enough matches to qualify. His basic skills suggest it’s no coincidence, with his fast racket currently ranking 29th in average exit speed on line motors and flying balls (96.8 mph) among hitters at least. 25 hit ball events this chapter. It has been so Best in postseason In a number of areas, it hits .500 with a slowdown mark of 1,042 in Friday’s playoffs, and gives Rise – who ranked the top ten in Multiplication and War monument Another potential star.
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