Kuzul

Game 1 of the National League Championship Series between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the St. Louis Cardinals is going into the vault as another chapter in the book of legendary things done in October by the great Carlos Beltran.

Game 1 of the NLCS saw Beltran do that thing he has a tendency to do in the postseason. The perennial playoff hero hit a two-run double in the third inning that knotted the score at 2-2, and it was his single down the right field line in the 13th inning that scored Daniel Descalso and allowed the Cardinals to walk off with a 3-2 victory.

But if you missed it, don’t make the mistake of thinking that Beltran won Game 1 single-handedly. He was lent a helping hand on Friday night/Saturday morning at Busch Stadium.

And of all places, it came from the opposing dugout.

We could call the book’s latest chapter “Another Carlos Beltran Game,” but we might as well call it “The Don Mattingly Game.” For while the Cardinals owe their win to their veteran outfielder, the Dodgers owe their loss to their manager. 

The third-year skipper made a series of mistakes throughout the proceedings that cost the Dodgers dearly in the end. And since the night’s performance was hardly a first for Mattingly, the writing is on the wall in big, bold letters: If the Dodgers are going to win the World Series, they need Don Mattingly to stop doing Don Mattingly things.

For them to be the best, he needs to get better.

OK, let’s get our bearings here. I used the ol‘ “if you missed it” line back there just as a convenient transition, but maybe you really did miss it and you have no idea what the heck is going on. Maybe you don’t know why Mattingly is lying under that bus over there.

Well, let’s see. I suppose the madness started in the eighth inning.

It was a 2-2 game when Dodgers first baseman and cleanup man Adrian Gonzalez came to the plate with nobody out in the top of the eighth. He drew a leadoff walk against Carlos Martinez, and that’s when Mattingly made his first puzzling move. Rather than let Gonzalez run for himself, Mattingly inserted Dee Gordon as a pinch-runner.

A bold move indeed. Gordon’s undeniably fast, but he’s not a great base stealer, with a modest career success rate of 70 percent. Plus, there was Yadier Molina, arguably the greatest defensive catcher in history, behind the plate. Even putting in Billy Hamilton to run would have been a risky call.

And if it didn’t pay off, the Dodgers would have lost their cleanup hitter for nothing.

Sure enough, Mattingly didn’t call for Gordon to take off. He stood glued to first base until Yasiel Puig grounded a ball to Cardinals shortstop Pete Kozma, who easily erased Gordon at second base.

And that was it for him. Gordon was lifted from the game in favor of Michael Young, who was inserted in the cleanup spot and at first base. Mattingly had wasted his best speed weapon off the bench, and he ended up with a lesser fielder at first and a lesser hitter at cleanup as a result.

This naturally came back to bite the Dodgers. Twice.

The first time it bit the Dodgers was in the 10th inning. Mark Ellis hit a one-out triple that was followed by an intentional walk to Hanley Ramirez. Young then hit a fly ball to right field that Beltran caught and turned into an inning-ending double play with a strike to home that beat Ellis to the plate.

It’s hard to tell, even in the slow-motion replays, whether Molina actually tagged Ellis, but consider what that situation might have looked like if Mattingly hadn’t subbed Gordon for Gonzalez in the eighth. It would have been Gonzalez at the plate, and possibly Gordon at third base.

Gonzalez, a .293 hitter in the regular season, might have gotten a hit. Had he hit that same fly ball to Beltran instead, the speedy Gordon would have scored easily.

But wait, there’s more that went down in the 12th inning.

Batting against Lance Lynn, Carl Crawford led off the top of the inning with a single. Rather than let Ellis hit away, Mattingly called for him to sacrifice Crawford to second with a bunt.

The bunt was successful…and also not at the same time. What it did was open up first base for Ramirez, making it an easy call for the Cardinals to take his bat out of his hands with an intentional walk. That brought Young to the plate, and he grounded into an inning-ending double play.

Meanwhile, Mattingly was making a mistake in-between these mistakes by keeping Kenley Jansen confined to the bullpen, signalling that he was intent on only using him in a save situation.

This despite the fact Jansen held hitters to a lower OPS in non-save situations in 2013 than he did in save situations. And also despite the fact Jansen didn’t become the Dodgers “closer” until June.

What Mattingly was doing was prioritizing Jansen’s role over his actual pitching ability. As Matt Snyder of CBS Sports pointed out:

Jansen eventually made it into the game in the 13th inning, but not until after Chris Withrow had allowed a single to Descalso and a walk to Matt Carpenter to put the winning run in scoring position with maybe the greatest postseason hitter ever striding to the plate. 

Mattingly could have asked a much smaller favor of his best relief pitcher several innings earlier. He instead asked a huge favor, and Jansen couldn’t come through.

When it was all over, there was no quarter for Mattingly in the Twitterverse. Many took to trolling him, but it was Jay Jaffe of Sports Illustrated who said it best with this subtle barb:

This has to do with the aforementioned fact that Mattingly‘s night of mistakes wasn’t a first for him. Heck, it wasn’t even a first for him within the Dodgers’ last four games.

In the bottom of the seventh inning of Game 2 of the National League Division Series against the Atlanta Braves, Mattingly chose to make a pitching change rather than have Withrow face Jose Constanza, he of the .575 OPS over the last two seasons. Once Reed Johnson pinch-hit for Constanza, Mattingly chose to walk him intentionally to bring Jason Heyward to the plate instead.

This would be the same Jason Heyward who had a .932 OPS after the break. The same Jason Heyward who, seeing as how he posted a higher OPS against lefties than against righties, was not going to be afraid of facing the lefty-throwing Paco Rodriguez.

And ultimately, this would be the same Jason Heyward who clubbed a two-run single that gave the Braves a 4-1 lead. Rather than give a lead to the Dodgers, all Ramirez’s two-run homer in the next frame could do was cut into the Braves’ lead.

The Heyward blunder was a gaffe that actually happened, and then there was the gaffe that could have happened in Game 4. 

The Dodgers entered the eighth inning trailing 3-2 and with a golden opportunity ahead of them with David Carpenter on the mound for the Braves instead of the usually invincible Craig Kimbrel (derp, because he’s a closer, derp). When Puig led off with a double, the Dodgers were in business.

And then Mattingly asked Juan Uribe to bunt. He was willing to trust a guy with only three sacrifices all season to not screw this one up. On top of that, he was willing to give the Braves a free out even though there was already a runner in scoring position, and a speedy one at that.

Fortunately, Uribe wasn’t able to get a bunt down. Instead, he hit a two-run homer that gave the Dodgers a 4-3 lead they wouldn’t relinquish. Via Amanda Rykoff, the irony of the moment was not lost on longtime Dodgers broadcaster/bard Vin Scully:

There’s an alternate universe out there in which Uribe’s bunt is successful. Within that same universe, maybe that free out bites the Dodgers, who fail to score and then go down against Kimbrel in the ninth. 

And in that scenario, of course, the Dodgers would have burned a start by Clayton Kershaw on short rest for a loss that sent the series back to Atlanta for Game 5. The questions, second-guesses and outrage would have come down on Mattingly like a ton of bricks.

You know, sort of like they are now. As well they should be.

There have been worse managers than Mattingly. Heck, there are worse managers than Mattingly. It’s easy enough to realize that once you remember that Bobby Valentine is still out there somewhere.

Exactly what sort of value Mattingly brings to the Dodgers, however, is unclear. 

It’s easy to credit Mattingly with keeping his house in order when it could easily have fallen apart when it was being written as early as May that his job was hanging by a thread.

The team started playing good baseball soon after, sure, but that good baseball just so happened to coincide with the arrival of Puig and Ramirez finally getting healthy. In early July, Zack Greinke turned on the jets. Then, Ricky Nolasco arrived and was terrific for a dozen starts.

If the question is how much of the Dodgers’ success this season is due to their talent and how much of it to Mattingly‘s leadership, you have to side with the former to a staggering degree. With that payroll and that roster, it’s not like the Dodgers overachieved under Mattingly.

The debate over Mattingly‘s actual value to the Dodgers could have been had before the postseason even began. But regardless of the exact number of skeptics he had out there, October was going to be Mattingly‘s chance to shut them up by managing the heck out of his ballclub. If ever there was a time for Mattingly to be confirmed as a “great manager with great talent” rather than as a “manager with great talent,” it’s going on right now.

And so far, he’s been a huge disappointment.

Mattingly could have cost the Dodgers in Game 4 of the NLDS. He did cost the Dodgers in Game 2 of that series. Likewise, he did cost the Dodgers in Game 1 of the NLCS. That’s three games out of five that have Mattingly‘s fingerprints on them, and not in a good way.

Mattingly can’t keep this up. Not at this rate. Not against a Cardinals team that is miles more legit than the Braves ever were—Atlanta tied for last in strength of schedule this season. Not in a setting where one game carries the weight of dozens. 

It’s on Mattingly to do his utmost to make sure that weight doesn’t come crashing down. If he doesn’t, the Dodgers are invariably going to find themselves falling short of the World Series. 

And that’s when the Dodgers could well decide that new leadership is needed.

If you want to talk baseball, hit me up on Twitter.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

Now that Major League Baseball’s final four have been determined, it’s only a matter of a little more time until but two remain.

With the Boston Red Sox and Detroit Tigers in the American League and the St. Louis Cardinals and Los Angeles Dodgers in the National League, there are four possible iterations of World Series matchups. But which pair of teams would make for the most compelling showdown?

To be sure, drama and intrigue would come right along with any of the four possibilities. But strictly from a between-the-white-lines angle, one head-to-head battle would set itself up for particularly compelling competition…

Tigers vs. Dodgers.

Certainly, there’s a strong case to be made that Red Sox-Dodgers would be a matchup for the ages, a made-for-television showcase, as fellow MLB Lead Writer Zach Rymer wrote recently. That one comes complete with roster subplots galore, big-market juice, East Coast-West Coast rivalry and more. It’s hard to argue that wouldn’t be best for the sport or for ratings. (And in the interest of full disclosure, it’s the Series I would most like to watch from a pure entertainment factor.)

But Tigers-Dodgers? That would have much of the same—big names, big personalities, big markets—but it would also have two elements that no other potential matchup would. (Again, in the interest of disclosing information, I’ll point out that this was the matchup I picked, so there is that.)

First, these great franchises are the only two of the remaining four who have never faced each other in the World Series.

We saw the Red Sox break the Curse of the Bambino and end their 86-year drought by beating the Cardinals in 2004. Only two years after that, the Cardinals toppled the Tigers to win it all in 2006. And the Red Sox and Dodgers is another been-there-done-that Series—even if that was all the way back in 1916 when the Dodgers were known as the Brooklyn Robins. (Bonus points if you got that one.)

Second, it’s been at least 25 years since either the Tigers or the Dodgers have captured the championship. The Dodgers last did so in 1988, while the Tigers haven’t won since 1984.

Tigers-Dodgers would be new, it would be different and it would be a title a long time in the making for either side. But getting back to the actual on-the-diamond aspect of this potential matchup.

Question: What makes for the best competition in baseball? Pitching, of course. Specifically, pitching of the starting variety. And wouldn’t you know it: The Dodgers and Tigers have the best rotation ERAs in their respective leagues.

L.A.’s 3.13 starters’ ERA was tops in the game, while Detroit’s 3.44 was fourth overall (barely behind two other NL clubs) but No. 1 in the AL.

And my goodness, imagine the possibilities when it comes to pitching matchups with names like Clayton Kershaw, Zack Greinke, Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander in the mix to be on the mound for as many as two games apiece. Whatever permutation you pick, the hype, anticipation and buildup of the showdown could only be matched by the mastery, artistry and must-watch theater of each actual performance.

With that much elite starting pitching, runs would be at even more of a premium than they are amid the postseason in this pitching-dominated period. Every single at-bat with a runner on would be a rare event, occurring perhaps only slightly more frequently than Halley’s Comet. It would give that much more meaning to all other facets of the game, like the managers’ strategies, the defenders’ focus and the hitters’ execution.

There are reasons why other possible Fall Classic matchups would be fun, dramatic and compelling, too. But for pure competition, the Detroit Tigers and Los Angeles Dodgers could be one giant pitchers’ duel of a World Series.

And good pitching beats, well, everything else.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

Back in August, I wrote about how a healthy Matt Kemp would be the final piece to the Dodgers‘ World Series run. And when he finally returned in mid-September with 11 hits in his first 28 at-bats, including three doubles and a homer, that final piece to an already strong team appeared to have arrived. 

But it wasn’t meant to be. A recurring ankle injury forced the 29-year-old out of action for the remainder of the season and playoffs.

It hasn’t slowed the Dodgers, though, who knocked out the Braves in four NLDS games and will head to the NLCS as favorites over the Pirates or Cardinals.

Should we be surprised? I had them winning the division in my preseason NL West preview, and so did many others. But they looked like anything but contenders after a June 21 loss to the Padres, which dropped their record to 30-42.

They were in last place and 9.5 games back of the division-leading Diamondbacks. Nearly four months later, they’ve gone 65-29 and are eight wins away from a championship.

So, how did they go from cellar-dwellers with a manager and general manager on the hot seat to World Series favorites?

As easy as it is to point to rookie Yasiel Puig’s call-up, it’s been so much more than that. While Puig may have been the necessary spark, the Dodgers have gotten to this point with an all-around team effort.

Here’s a look at the five keys that have the Dodgers closing in on their first World Series title since 1988. 

Begin Slideshow

Max Scherzer earned it.

That’s what Detroit Tigers manager Jim Leyland indicated when he tabbed Scherzer to start Game 1 of the American League Division Series against the Oakland A’s. The exact phrase he used, as reported by George Sipple of the Detroit Free Press, was that it was “hard to argue” with Scherzer being the best man for the job.

It’s even harder to argue now. 

Scherzer took the ball in front of 48,401 hostile fans at O.co Coliseum on Friday night and had them quietly twiddling their thumbs for much of the evening. He allowed only two earned runs on three hits and two walks. And ultimately, he set new postseason career highs for innings pitched (seven) and strikeouts (11) to lead the Tigers to a hard-fought 3-2 victory and a 1-0 series lead.

There was some debate as to whether Scherzer was the right choice to start Game 1. Not a lot of it, mind you, but apparently enough for an ESPN poll. If there was enough debate for one of those, there was surely enough for some water-cooler chatter elsewhere. 

Leyland could have gone with old standby Justin Verlander, which was the no-brainer choice last year when he was the reigning AL Cy Young and MVP. And all he did in the 2012 ALDS was limit the A’s to one run in 16 innings over two starts, the latter of which was a series-clinching shutout on the road in Game 5.

Or Leyland could have gone with Anibal Sanchez, the 2013 American League ERA champion. Heck, even ground-ball merchant Doug Fister would have been a solid choice. Barring notorious BABIP magnet Rick Porcello, Leyland could have rationalized any choice he made.

But Leyland didn’t make any choice. He made the right choice.

Scherzer made one bad pitch all night on Friday: a fastball to Yoenis Cespedes in the seventh inning that caught too much of the plate. Cespedes promptly sent the pitch into orbit for a two-run homer that narrowed Detroit’s lead to 3-2 and woke the crowd up something fierce.

What seemed to be the turning of the tide, however, was soon quelled by Scherzer’s hand. He followed Cespedes’ home run by retiring the next three batters in a row, the last a swinging strikeout of Daric Barton.

For Scherzer, that was the cap on a start that came off as feeling, well, typical. Aside from Cespedes’ moonshot, Scherzer was able to do his usual Max Scherzer thing.

After the game, he indicated that was more or less the whole idea.

“It was the same as always,” said Scherzer when asked about his mindset heading into Game 1. “I don’t get caught up in the hoopla. I don’t worry about where I’m pitching or if I’m pitching Game 1 or Game 5. It doesn’t matter.”

But then he hinted there might have been a little extra something going on in his head: “When you’re facing a postseason team like the A’s, you have to bring your A-game.”

The A’s certainly weren’t a team to be taken lightly. The club as a whole cut down on the strikeout habit that served as its Achilles’ heel in 2012, going from placing third in MLB in strikeout percentage to placing 20th. And like it did last year, Oakland’s offense exploded in the second half, leading the majors in home runs and placing behind only the Boston Red Sox in runs scored.

Scherzer was one of the more notable dragons slain by Oakland’s offense in the second half. When the A’s faced the right-hander in late August, they touched him up for six runs (five earned) in only five innings. By Game Score’s reckoning, it was Scherzer’s worst start of the season.

Scherzer said after the game that his rough outing against the A’s in August didn’t lead to any real adjustments ahead of Game 1’s performance. For him, he just did his usual thing.

“Tonight I just thought I came out there with a good fastball and good changeup,” said the 29-year-old right-hander, “and I was able to mix in some curveballs to the lefties to help slow them down. I made some big pitches with the curveball in some situations to help generate some outs.”

Oakland A’s manager Bob Melvin singled out the fastball as a notable factor.

“He’s always tough,” said Melvin, adding: “If you don’t see him that often, his fastball gets on you a bit quicker because of how his velocity plays. He has such good extension.”

Concerning Friday night, however, Melvin doesn’t know the half of it.

Per Brooks Baseball, Scherzer’s heater was sitting at 94.9 miles per hour and got as high as 99.2 at one point. He was also getting an average of 8.64 inches of horizontal break on it.

His season averages in those two departments: 93.96 miles per hour and 7.88 inches. The latter is impressive enough, as no right-hander who threw as many as 500 four-seamers generated as much horizontal movement as Scherzer.

So with even more movement and velocity in Game 1, Scherzer’s already fantastic fastball was more fantastic.

Scherzer’s changeup, meanwhile, did its job. While his overpowering fastball ended up accounting for over half of his 20 swinging strikes, the changeup took care of the other half. At around 85.3 miles per hour, it was coming in roughly 10 miles per hour slower than his hard stuff on Friday night, with its typical nasty movement to boot. Most of the swings against it were of the helpless variety.

As for the curveball, it’s actually one of Scherzer’s newer weapons, one that he used almost exclusively against left-handed batters in 2013 after giving it a tryout toward the end of 2012. It proved to be a lefty killer, as they only hit .194 against it with two extra-base hits.

And Scherzer is right about the curve getting him some outs against the A’s in Game 1. He didn’t get any whiffs on the curves he threw, but both of the curves that were put in play on Friday night went for outs.

Scherzer credited two other things for his success in Game 1.

“I thought I did a good job of attacking the zone and throwing first-pitch strikes—something I always pride myself in—and was able to get deep into the game,” he said.

Scherzer threw 78 of his 118 pitches for strikes. That’s 66 percent, a mirror image of his regular-season rate of…66 percent.

As for first-pitch strikes, Scherzer threw 18 of those to the 26 batters he faced. That’s 69.2 percent, a rate slightly higher than his regular-season rate of 64 percent. Which, for the record, was a new career high.

Add it all up, and you get another exclamation mark in a season that’s been full of them for Scherzer. The regular season that saw him finish with a 21-3 record was no accident. Wins are fluky, but posting a 2.90 ERA with a 10.1 K/9 and a league-best 0.97 WHIP is as good a way as any to keep ’em coming. The best way to a great record is through great pitching.

And to that extent, not even one of the guys who might have started Game 1 could deny Scherzer’s claim to the honor.

“Max is the best pitcher in the American League,” said Verlander before Game 1 when asked if he was disappointed that he wasn’t chosen to start. “The only reason this is being brought up is because of what I’ve done over the last couple of years. Like I said, Max without a doubt is the best pitcher in the American League, and he absolutely earned this.”

He sure did, and he sure made the most of it. 

And if Verlander, Sanchez and Fister follow Scherzer’s lead, he’s likely not going to be done making the most of Game 1s.

Note: Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com unless otherwise noted. Quotes obtained firsthand.

If you want to talk baseball, hit me up on Twitter.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

How a player performs when the games matter most could have an affect on his overall value, which is of greater importance to those who are eligible for free agency at season’s end. 

While a majority of these players will not stand out in a good or bad way, there are a handful of them who will. As a result, the price tag could rise or fall, at least slightly. A pair of 2012 postseason stars, Marco Scutaro and Anibal Sanchez, each cashed in after boosting their value greatly with strong playoff performances. 

Here are six players off to either a great start or a very poor start, or in one case, already done for the season after a wild-card loss. 

Begin Slideshow

By any reasonable set of standards, Prince Fielder is a fantastic hitter. The Detroit Tigers first baseman owns a .286/.389/.527 career batting line and is one of only 17 players in MLB history with at least 285 home runs through his age-29 season.

…But he’s also one of those guys.

You know, one of those guys who just can’t cut it in October. Fielder has played in six series and 28 games in the postseason, and in those he owns a mere .183/.277/.365 batting line. That’s a .643 OPS that’s close to 300 points below Fielder’s .916 regular-season OPS.

The inevitable question in these situations can be asked with only one word: Why? Or, if you prefer, whyyyyyyyyyy?

Well, this being baseball, there are naturally plenty of answers for Fielder’s postseason struggles. Let’s discuss them, shall we?

More Strikeouts + Bad Luck = A Bad Time

When you think of sluggers, you think of guys who cause baseballs all sorts of pain on contact, but for whom the actual act of making contact is tricky. For examples, see “Dunn, Adam” or “Davis, Chris.”

But Fielder? He’s different.

Fielder has been better than the average player at avoiding strikeouts during his career. Per FanGraphs, his career strikeout rate is only 17.5 percent, and he’s managed to live below that mark over the last three years while strikeout rates have risen elsewhere in Major League Baseball. 

However, things change for Fielder in the postseason. Behold:

Every year Fielder has played in October, he’s seen his strikeout rate take a sudden hike. And overall, his postseason strikeout rate is notably higher than his regular-season strikeout rate.

The simplest explanation for this is that the pitching is better in the postseason. Good teams tend to have good pitchers, after all, so October doesn’t present Fielder as many opportunities to light up the stat sheet against lesser adversaries. 

We’ll get into the more complicated explanations soon enough. For now, let’s just agree that strikeouts are bad, m’kay? They bar players from putting the ball in play, thus hurting their chances of doing something good.

This leads us to another explanation for Fielder’s October struggles. For all his strikeouts, he certainly has put the ball in play a fair amount in the postseason. And when he has, his luck has downright sucked.

Courtesy of FanGraphs, here’s some key data about Fielder’s postseason batted balls and BABIP in the postseason as compared to the regular season:

Fielder’s line-drive, ground-ball and fly-ball rates in the postseason aren’t mirror images of his regular-season numbers, but they’re really close. And while more infield pop-ups and fewer home runs per fly ball isn’t the best trend, it’s not one that should come paired with such a massive decrease in BABIP.

Want to see what this sort of bad luck looks like? Very well then.

This happened to Fielder in the 2011 NLCS:

This happened to him in last year’s ALDS:

And this happened in last year’s World Series:

If we add four hits to Fielder’s postseason resume, he’s a .221 career hitter in the playoffs. That’s still not good, but it’s not as awful as .183 either.

That the baseball gods haven’t done Fielder any favors in his October career is a point that should sound good to the Tigers. If Fielder has had bad luck his previous three trips to the postseason, he’s surely due for some good luck.

However, more good luck won’t turn Fielder into a postseason hero all by itself. He still has that strikeout issue to worry about, and there are other things a bit more tangible than luck working against him.

Such as…

Less Patience + Iffy Plate Discipline = A Badder Time

Striking out less often than the typical power hitter isn’t the only thing Fielder does well. He also has the kind of walk habit you want a slugger to have.

But like with the whole strikeout thing, Fielder’s walk habit takes a turn for the worse in October. Here are some more numbers:

Granted, Fielder’s walk habit didn’t take too bad of a dive in the postseason until last year, when he cut his walk percentage in half and then some. That said, there has been a drop in each of the three years he’s played October baseball, and an overall drop to boot.

Coming up with solid explanations for this habit isn’t easy due to how tricky it is to find data for the postseason. For example, FanGraphs doesn’t track plate discipline data for the playoffs, which is usually the first place one turns to in times like these.

However, there are some things that can be pieced together.

A decline in Fielder’s patience come October appears to be a problem. Per Baseball-Reference.com, Fielder saw an average of 3.83 pitches per plate appearance between 2008 and 2012. Using postseason data from Brooks Baseball, Fielder has seen 429 pitches in his playoff career, which has spanned 119 plate appearances. That comes out to 3.61 pitches per plate appearance, a notable drop.

As for Fielder’s plate discipline, his regular season and postseason swing profiles at Brooks Baseball provide some insight. I unfortunately can’t re-post the images here, but if you go and look you’ll see that Fielder’s habit of chasing pitches up is clearly more pronounced in October, as are his habits of chasing pitches both low and away and outside.

That Fielder is seemingly more willing to expand the zone in the postseason is indeed something that wouldn’t help his chances of getting on base via walks.

And yes, this is something that helps explain his strikeout habit, as there are some big numbers and interesting colors on pitches down and up and outside if one goes and looks at whiff/swing plots for Fielder in the regular season and in the postseason.

Since there’s no plate discipline over at FanGraphs to put more precise numbers on things, I’ll warn that there’s a limit to how much we can read into all this. But it certainly doesn’t look good. Patience and discipline are two of Fielder’s strengths, yet these strengths seem to wane in October.

But wait, there’s more.

In All Three Postseasons, An Abundance of Lefty Sliders

Like, well, pretty much all left-handed hitters, Fielder doesn’t like hitting left-handed pitching. He’s better than most lefties with a career .803 OPS against southpaws, but that’s not quite as impressive as his .971 OPS against righty pitchers.

And if there’s one thing about facing lefty pitchers that Fielder loathes the most, it might be the sliders.

According to Brooks Baseball, Fielder has seen 1,150 sliders from left-handed pitchers in regular-season games from 2008 to 2013. Against those, he’s batted only .253 with 107 strikeouts. He doesn’t have any more than 61 strikeouts against any other lefty pitch.

Knowing this, the numbers in this table shouldn’t surprise you:

*To clarify, this means the percentage of all pitches seen from lefties that were sliders.

In regular-season games over the last six years, Fielder has seen his share of sliders from left-handed pitchers. But in the two postseasons he played in 2008 and 2011, the number of lefty sliders went way up, and he was unable to both lay off them or hit them. And in last year’s postseason, it was even worse.

Against the lefty sliders he saw in the 2008 and 2011 playoffs, Fielder had one hit to three strikeouts. In 2012, it was one hit to two strikeouts. That makes lefty sliders responsible for 20 percent of his career postseason punchouts and only about 11 percent of his postseason hits.

And it makes sense why Fielder would come up against more of them in the postseason, right? With every pitch and every out meaning the world at any given moment, lefty pitchers facing Fielder would be more willing to go to their best offerings in order to get him out. And since it’s worked, shoot, why stop?

Granted, this is more of a complementary explanation for Fielder’s October issues. Some regression in his approach at the plate and bad luck account for the bulk of his postseason struggles. The lefty sliders just haven’t helped.

But now you might be wondering why I sectioned off the 2012 postseason rather than include it with the 2008 and 2011 postseasons. Allow me to shed some light on that with the next bolded section.

In 2012, Too Many Southpaws on the Mound

As poor as Fielder’s overall postseason numbers are, he was actually getting by OK before 2012. He only hit .192 in his first 15 playoff games, but he did so with an .817 OPS. 

Last year was when things really went south. In addition to hitting only .173 in 13 games, Fielder only managed a .463 OPS. Even if his bad luck had become good luck, he still would have had a pretty rough go of things.

But understand this: It wasn’t easy for Fielder. Seemingly every time he went to the plate, there was a left-hander on the mound.

This is not an exaggeration. Here’s a look at the percentage of pitches from lefty pitchers that Fielder saw in the 2012 playoffs compared to 2008-2013 regular-season games and 2008/2011 postseason games:

In the 2008 and 2011 playoffs, things were basically normal for Fielder. But last year? Yeah, not normal at all.

It’s not that Fielder was constantly facing LOOGYs. That big number is more a matter of the Oakland A’s, New York Yankees and San Francisco Giants each throwing two lefty starters at the Tigers. The full list: Tommy Milone, Brett Anderson, CC Sabathia, Andy Pettitte, Barry Zito and Madison Bumgarner.

As for the lefty relievers Fielder had to face, that list includes: Jerry Blevins, Clay Rapada, Boone Logan, Jose Mijares and Jeremy Affeldt.

Now, I should note that Fielder deserves credit for the work he did against the southpaws he saw. Eight of his nine postseason hits last year came against lefties and only five of his 11 strikeouts.

The catch, however, is that all eight of those hits were singles. That fits with Fielder’s career narrative, as his career Isolated Power against lefties is about 80 points lower than his career Isolated Power against righties (see FanGraphs). Throwing lefties at him is the best way to neutralize his power. 

And while it’s admittedly hard (if not impossible) to back up the following suggestion with data, I wonder if having to face lefties so much more often than usual got Fielder all out of whack. It could be that his timing got thrown off. Or maybe it was a vision thing. Maybe it was both.

Whatever the case, I presume that having to go through a gauntlet of southpaws in October is something Fielder would prefer not to do again.

Final Thoughts

To repeat what was said way back when, Prince Fielder is one of those guys. In some circles, those guys tend to be known simply as “bums.” Because how else can you refer to guys who can’t get it done in October, darn it?

Instead, here’s how I look at Fielder: He’s proof positive that the postseason is a different animal.

The pressure is a lot higher in the postseason. That Fielder’s approach has been less measured in October suggests that he’s felt that pressure.

But also, the pitching is different in the postseason. That Fielder has had to deal with so many of those dastardly left-handed sliders is Exhibit A for him.

And then there’s luck. The luck of the draw didn’t do Fielder any favors by throwing so many lefties at him last year, and then there’s all the bad luck he’s had on batted balls.

The bright side, such as it is, is that all the postseason presents is a series of small sample sizes. What is true in a small sample size can indeed be misleading, and the truth can change as the overall sample size gets larger.

In other words: don’t rule out Fielder having a big October this year just because of what he’s done in the past.

Note: Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com unless otherwise noted. 

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The pieces are all in place for the National League Wild Card Game. The teams, the venue and the pitching matchup have been decided.

The Pittsburgh Pirates and Cincinnati Reds were locked in as the Senior Circuit’s two wild-card clubs the moment the St. Louis Cardinals clinched the NL Central with a win over the Chicago Cubs on Friday night.

And after using a six-home run barrage to notch a second straight win against the Reds on Saturday afternoon, the Pirates earned the right to host the play-in game on Tuesday.

As Bill Brink of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported, on the mound for the Pirates is going to be Francisco Liriano. John Fay of the Cincinnati Enquirer, meanwhile, reported on Saturday that Reds manager Dusty Baker has settled on Johnny Cueto as his starter.

After taking a look at a few numbers, I can say the following: Tuesday’s game should be a good one. There are things working in favor of both pitchers and both teams.

Let’s get the elephant in the room out of the way first. Cueto has gotten the nod for the start, but is he ready for it? He has, after all, been battling shoulder injuries for much of 2013 and has only made two starts since being activated off the disabled list.

The two starts Cueto’s made are a bit of a mixed bag. He only allowed one earned run in 12 innings, sure, but he did so against the Houston Astros and New York Mets and wasn’t totally overpowering. He collected only 10 strikeouts to four walks, with one home run allowed.

But while I hesitate to say “He’s back!,” based on his performances against the Astros and Mets, it is encouraging that Cueto’s arm appears to be at full strength or near enough to it. Per Brooks Baseball, here’s how his fastball velocity in his last two starts compare to what he had in 2012.

There’s a small velocity gap between what Cueto had in 2012 and what he’s had in his last two starts, but that it’s only a small gap is the good news. It’s not as if Cueto is missing three, two or even one mile per hour off the velocity he had last year.

So despite the fact Cueto doesn’t have as many appearances under his belt as Liriano, I’d say we’re looking at a fair fight. That’s our go-ahead to dig a little deeper into a variety of super-interesting statistical stuffitude. 

You’ve probably heard it mentioned that Liriano has had a tendency to own at PNC Park. And this is very much true, as he has a 1.47 ERA at Pittsburgh’s home park in 2013, holding hitters to a .474 OPS.

But hey, Cueto’s been in his element at PNC Park, too. He has a 1.90 ERA in 13 starts in his career at PNC Park and has held hitters to a .544 OPS there. Per Baseball-Reference.com, Cueto doesn’t have a lower ERA at any other park in which he’s made at least three starts.

And since he’s not the one who’s pitching in the NL Central for the first time in 2013, Cueto is, obviously, more experienced pitching against the Pirates than Liriano is pitching against the Reds. Cueto owns a 2.37 ERA in 21 career starts against the Pirates, which looks better than the 3.70 ERA Liriano has in four starts against the Reds this season.

But since Cueto has racked up his impressive career ERA over several seasons against several different versions of the Pirates, let’s narrow our focus a bit and see how he’s done against the players he’s likely to come up against on Tuesday.

The following numbers are courtesy of ESPN.com:

It must be a welcome sight for Reds fans that Cueto has handled Pedro Alvarez and Neil Walker so well, as Alvarez has killed the Reds the last two days and Walker blasted two homers in Saturday’s game. He’s also handled Clint Barmes, Russell Martin and Starling Marte well, albeit in a limited number of head-to-head matchups.

Cueto will have to be careful with Andrew McCutchen and Marlon Byrd, but one wonders if he’ll have to worry about facing Garrett Jones.

Justin Morneau has played first base on an everyday basis since coming over from Minnesota, while Jones has been left to waste away on the bench in the meantime. He has only four hits in his last 31 at-bats, so Clint Hurdle might be sticking with Morneau on Tuesday.

If so, Cueto will be facing a lineup with only two hitters who have hurt him in the past in it. How about Liriano?

With numbers once again courtesy of ESPN.com, here’s a look:

There’s not a whole lot of history here, but it does bode well for Liriano that he’s handled Shin-Soo Choo well in their head-to-head matchups, which, of course, date back to when they were both playing in the AL Central.

It also bodes well that he’s handled Jay Bruce, Brandon Phillips and Joey Votto, as they’re the ones who do the bulk of the heavy lifting in Baker’s batting order. And since Choo, Bruce and Votto are lefty hitters, Liriano could be shutting them down again on Tuesday.

As for the three who have pummeled Liriano—Ryan Ludwick, Todd Frazier and Devin Mesoraco—it’s likely that Liriano will only have to deal with two of them in Tuesday’s game. Ryan Hanigan has been the starting catcher in 10 of Cueto’s 11 starts this season and also caught 32 of Cueto’s 33 starts in 2012. He’ll probably be out there to catch him once again.

So what we have here is a push. In all likelihood, both Cueto and Liriano are going to be facing lineups that contain only two hitters who have hurt them in past matchups. And in the case of the Reds against Liriano, the numbers against him aren’t entirely indicative of how the team has fared against lefty starters this season.

On the contrary, the Reds have actually done quite well against southpaws this season. Here’s some data from Baseball-Reference.com:

The Reds have been slightly less effective against southpaw starters, but only slightly. That .711 OPS they have isn’t low relative to other teams either. Per Baseball-Reference.com, the Reds rank about in the middle of the pack in MLB in OPS against lefty starters.

As for the Pirates, I’ll note that they only had a .698 OPS against righty starters heading into Saturday’s game. Things aren’t so bad after hitting five home runs against Bronson Arroyo on Saturday, but there’s still quite a difference between their performances against lefty starters and righty starters.

The Pirates have done considerably worse this season against right-handed starters than they have against left-handed starters. It’s also relevant to our discussion that they’ve done worse against righty starters than the Reds have against lefty starters.

It’s not much, but that will do for a point in favor of the Reds. From here, let’s take pitching styles under consideration, shall we?

Liriano and Cueto are two different pitchers. With a strikeout rate in the neighborhood of 25 percent, Liriano is more of a power pitcher.

Cueto, on the other hand, is more of an average strikeout pitcher. What he’s better at is racking up ground balls, as FanGraphs has his ground-ball percentages over the last three seasons right around 50 percent. That’s easily above-average territory.

While the site’s stats for ground balls differ slightly from those of FanGraphs, Baseball-Reference.com does track how teams do against certain types of pitchers. That means we can compare how the Reds have done against power pitchers this season to how the Pirates have done against ground-ball pitchers.

So let’s do so:

It’s a small advantage, granted, but the Reds have done better against power pitchers than the Pirates have done against ground-ball pitchers. That’ll do for another point in favor of the Reds.

There’s one last place we can look for a potential advantage, and that’s in how Liriano and Cueto tend to go after hitters. To this end, there’s something that they have in common.

Liriano doesn’t have a tendency to throw pitch after pitch in the strike zone. According to Baseball Info Solutions data by way of FanGraphs, Liriano actually ranks second to last among qualified starting pitchers in Zone%, that being the percentage of pitches he throws inside the strike zone.

However, Cueto doesn’t live in the strike zone either. Both he and Liriano are pitchers who rely on getting hitters to expand the strike zone a bit more than the average starting pitcher, as the following table can show:

Note: We’re looking at Cueto’s numbers spanning 2012 and 2013 because his 2013 numbers alone represent too small a sample size.

Since both Liriano and Cueto both require hitters to be undisciplined to a certain degree, logic says that the team facing the more disciplined lineup on Tuesday will be in for a challenge. 

To this end, the numbers say that Cueto has the better matchup. With another assist from FanGraphs:

It’s close, but Reds hitters have had a tendency to take fewer swings outside the strike zone. The gap is less small in the number of swings these two clubs have taken inside the strike zone, as the Reds have been more prolific in doing so.

It’s absolutely worth noting that Liriano knows about Cincinnati’s relative discipline from experience. He walked seven in 12.1 innings in his last two starts against the Reds. One of those was an excellent eight-inning performance in which he got away with some wildness. The other saw him leave after only logging 4.1 innings.

If you’re a Pirates fan, you should still be optimistic about your team’s chances of advancing to the National League Division Series. The Buccos will be going into the game with some momentum, and they’ll have both the home field and a guy on the mound who has dominated on that home field. If the Reds aren’t on their game, he could do so again.

But based on what we’ve looked at, Reds fans can be optimistic, too. Cueto’s arm appears to be in solid shape. He has a good track record against the Pirates and at PNC Park, and he owns quality career numbers against some of Pittsburgh’s top hitters. Also, the Pirates would appear to be less cut out for a matchup against him than the Reds are for a matchup against Liriano.

So basically…who’s ready for a good baseball game?

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One of the greatest regular-season pitching performances in recent memory has come to a close.

Ace lefty Clayton Kershaw fired six innings of shutout ball against the Colorado Rockies on Friday night to lead the Los Angeles Dodgers to an easy 11-0 win. He allowed four hits and no walks with eight strikeouts. Factoring these numbers in, his final regular-season numbers look like this: 33 starts, 236.0 innings, 232 strikeouts, 52 walks, .195 BAA and a 1.83 ERA.

He’s the first pitcher since Roger Clemens in 2005 to finish with an ERA under 2.00, and he’s only the 11th since 1981 to do so.

A season for the books if there ever was one, but it’s not over quite yet. If Kershaw wants to make his season one for the ages, there’s one dragon left for him to slay: October.

The Dodgers are rolling into the postseason with weapons galore, from Hanley Ramirez to Yasiel Puig to Adrian Gonzalez to Carl Crawford to Zack Greinke to Kenley Jansen and to what might be a reinvigorated Matt Kemp. No opposing players look at names like these and have an easy feeling.

But Kershaw? He’s the guy. His golden left arm could be an automatic win machine for the Dodgers in October. Put enough of those in the bag, and the Dodgers may soon be celebrating their first World Series victory since 1988.

And try as I might, I couldn’t come up with any good reasons for why Kershaw might not be up to it. 

It crossed my mind for, oh, maybe two-and-a-half seconds to make something of Kershaw’s postseason track record. He pitched in October in 2008 and 2009, posting a 5.87 ERA in five appearances. Hardly the sort of performance befitting of an ace!

But yeah. Two problems. One is the ol’ small sample size thing, as Kershaw compiled that 5.87 ERA in five appearances that spanned only 15.1 innings. Three of those five appearances came in relief. 

Then there’s the second problem with daring to make anything of Kershaw’s postseason track record: It was made at a time when Clayton Kershaw wasn’t yet Clayton Kershaw.

Kershaw was 20 years old in 2008 and 21 in 2009. He was a real-life answer to Rick “Wild Thing” Vaughn both years, walking 4.3 batters per nine in ’08 and 4.8 batters per nine in ’09. The latter was a largely successful season due to Kershaw’s keen abilities to miss bats and limit hits, but stressful times were always just around the corner when he was on the hill.

In the past four seasons, Kershaw owns a mere 2.5 BB/9. He’s effectively cut his old walk habit in half, which my basic knowledge of baseball tells me is a “positive” trend.

It must also be noted that Kershaw was still getting to know a good friend of his the last time he pitched in the postseason.

As Grantland’s Jonah Keri told the tale, it wasn’t until June of 2009 that Kershaw started using a slider in games. His use of his slider has ballooned in the four years since, and I’d wager it’s a pitch that’s now just as feared as his curveball. Per Brooks Baseball, hitters own just a .152 average against Kershaw’s slider since the start of the 2010 season.

There’s another part of that Keri story that stands out, and it has to do with Kershaw’s, shall we say, intensity. The key bits read:

Talk to Ellis, other Dodgers teammates, beat writers, and everyone else around the team, and they’ll all describe Kershaw as pathologically determined to win.

[Snip]

In his mind, it makes sense to be a beloved, happy-go-lucky teammate four days out of five, only to bite teammates’ heads off on days when he’s starting if they bring up anything — movies, dinner plans, anything — that doesn’t relate to that night’s start.

Let’s go ahead and draw up a list of qualities you want in a guy who’s poised to lead your pitching staff in a quest for a World Series title. The idea guy would:

• Not be prone to getting himself in trouble.
• Have an arsenal of overpowering stuff.
• Have a burning desire to smite everything and everyone in his path.

So basically, Clayton Kershaw. Maybe he had the intensity before back in 2008 and 2009, but he didn’t have a complete arsenal yet, and he certainly didn’t have the ability to keep himself out of trouble by keeping his wildness in check. He wasn’t well-equipped for postseason duty. He is now.

With this avenue sealed off, I had to resort to turning my game of “Find Reasons to Doubt Clayton Kershaw” into a matter of nitpickery. Sure, he ended the season on a high note with his performance against the Rockies, but maybe he’s developed a weakness in recent days/weeks/months that could bite him in October. There’s gotta be something, right?

I’ll spare you from having to take a wild guess: Not really, no.

The first thing I did was draw Kershaw’s monthly splits on FanGraphs and focus on the top indicators of pitching quality. You know, things like strikeouts, walks, ground balls and home runs. All things that a pitcher can influence to some degree or another.

Here are those key numbers by month for Kershaw, with FIP (Fielding Independent Pitching) and ERA thrown in for good measure.

One thing that stands out is that Kershaw has been better in every category except for HR/FB rate in the second half of the season. And while his ERA for September is not his best, it’s also not his worst. September was also one of his best months for FIP, and he did just fine in the strikeout and walk departments.

With yet another avenue to doubt Kershaw sealed off, I said to myself, “OK, well, maybe his stuff has lost something. Maybe he’s not packing the same ammunition that he was packing earlier in the year.”

Um, no.

I went to Brooks Baseball and checked out Kershaw’s velocity numbers. Then I made another table:

Throughout the season, there’s been very little fluctuation in the speed of any of Kershaw’s pitches. On the contrary, he’s gained velocity. He’s been throwing harder in September than he was in April, and he’s been throwing harder in the second half than he was in the first half. He’s set a new career high for innings this season, but his arm wouldn’t appear to be losing any of its strength.

This would be yet another avenue to doubt Kershaw sealed off. So I then said to myself, “OK, so his arm is fine, but is his stuff fooling hitters as effectively as it has been all season?”

Here’s where, somewhat relieved, I finally found a nit to pick.

Momentarily, anyway.

What I wanted to do was see if any of Kershaw’s pitches have been finding bats more often in recent days. For that, I went to Brooks Baseball and dug up some whiff/swing numbers.

We didn’t see a whole lot of fluctuation in the other two tables. Here, we see all sorts of fluctuation, but only one red flag. Do you see it? 

It’s the whiff/swing rate on Kershaw’s slider this month. The lowest it had dropped before September was into the mid-30s. It’s been in the mid-20s this month, and the extra bats finding it have done some damage.

Before September, opponents hit .176 against Kershaw’s slider with a .114 ISO (Isolated Power) and four home runs. In September, opponents have hit .333 against it with a .292 ISO and two home runs. Before September, the horizontal movement on Kershaw’s slider was well over three inches. In September, it’s been under three inches.

…And it’s all thanks to a couple of bad games.

Here’s some September slider info:

Against the Rockies and Reds, Kershaw had a flat slider, and it wasn’t fooling anyone. Against the Giants and Padres, his slider was less flat and fooled a few more hitters. If it was the other way around—i.e., if Kershaw’s slider was getting flatter rather than sharper—there’d be a reason to worry. But, well, that’s not the way it is.

Another thing worth noting: Both of the homers hit off Kershaw’s slider this month were by the same guy several innings apart. Jay Bruce did the honors, first on a flat slider down in the lefty hitter’s happy zone, and again on another flat slider that was right over the heart of the plate.

Yet another thing worth noting: Kershaw’s slider continued to look good against the Rockies. Brooks Baseball) has the average horizontal movement of Kershaw’s slider on Friday night at 3.53 inches. That’s the best horizontal movement on it he’s had all month, and it’s even better than his season average of 3.34 inches.

Here’s where I abandoned my search for reasons to doubt Kershaw. I didn’t see everything, but I figured I’d seen enough.

What I knew at the beginning was that Kershaw had just put together one of the best pitching seasons in recent memory. What I then figured was that he’s much more cut out to excel in October than he was the last time he dipped his toes in. And outside of a brief lapse with one of his key pitches earlier this month, it’s scary how much of a model of consistency Kershaw has been over the past six months.

He ought to be able to keep doing his thing for one more month. If the Dodgers fail to win the World Series this year, something tells me it won’t be because of their ace.

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For the first time since 2009, the St. Louis Cardinals aren’t heading to the postseason as a mere wild-card team.

Nope, not this year. Meet your 2013 National League Central champions.

The Cardinals have pulled off quite the accomplishment in winning the division. The NL Central is the only division in baseball with three 90-win teams. In the Pittsburgh Pirates and Cincinnati Reds, the Cardinals outpaced two very good teams. Not a bad way to start a run to the World Series.

And after taking a look at the particulars, I’ve reached the following conclusion: If the 2006 Cardinals and 2011 Cardinals could win it all, then the 2013 Cardinals definitely can.

In the interest of due diligence, what we’re going to do is compare this year’s Cardinals to the ’06 and ’11 championship teams in four key areas: starting pitching, relief pitching, offense and defense. Without giving too much away, let’s just say that this year’s team stacks up pretty well.

Note: All the statistics ahead are current only through the completion of Thursday’s action.

Starting Pitching

Good starting pitching, as you might have noticed, has been a key part of the Cardinals’ success this season.

There have been several moving parts in Mike Matheny’s rotation throughout the year, and the core group he’s using now is notably inexperienced and hasn’t racked up high pitch counts or eating innings. But hey, a 3.46 ERA is a 3.46 ERA. Per FanGraphs, only the Reds and Los Angeles Dodgers have gotten a lower ERA from their starters.

Things are already looking good here, but we can make them look better.

Do you guys remember what the ’06 Cardinals rolled into the postseason with in their starting rotation? If not, take a look at the table below. With data courtesy of FanGraphs, let’s take a moment to revel in the mediocrity:

Note: FIP is Fielding Independent Pitching, which effectively takes defense out of the equation to evaluate pitchers based more on their talent than their luck.

Chris Carpenter: good. Jeff Suppan: decent enough. Anthony Reyes and Jeff Weaver: yeesh.

Yes, things ended up working out in the end. But this table serves as a reminder of one of the reasons the ’06 Cardinals, an 83-win team in the regular season, seemed doomed heading into the playoffs. Good starting pitching is of utmost importance in October when the series are short and teams shy away from their worst starters, and the Cardinals only had one really good pitcher to roll out.

The 2011 Cardinals, by comparison, were in better shape. Here’s more data courtesy of FanGraphs:

Better. Much better.

Once again, Carpenter was his typical steady self, and I’m sure you recall him pitching like a stud at the end of the regular season (1.13 ERA in his last five starts) and in the postseason as well. Jaime Garcia and Kyle Lohse, meanwhile, were perfectly serviceable starters, and Edwin Jackson gave the Cards a boost after he was acquired in a midseason trade.

However, you might also recall Lohse and Jackson struggling in the 2011 postseason. That’s always a danger with guys who can’t miss bats, and that was an issue that plagued both of them in the regular season.

This serves as a nice segue into a look at the 2013 Cardinals, with more data courtesy of FanGraphs:

Simple math: the combined WAR of the top three guys here is higher than that of the top three of the 2006 Cardinals or 2011 Cardinals. That has as much to do with the fact that Adam Wainwright has had a downright brilliant season, but hats must be tipped to Lance Lynn and Shelby Miller for the seasons they’ve had.

And collectively, this bunch has been quite good at missing bats. Wainwright, Lynn, Miller and Michael Wacha all strike out more batters than the average starting pitcher. Joe Kelly doesn’t, but he gets enough ground balls to make up for it. His ground-ball percentage is easily over 50.

If it’s a choice between the three rotations, give me the 2013 Cardinals any day. The 2011 Cardinals had starting pitching that was none too shabby, and the experience their starters had must be noted. But this year’s Cardinals are deeper in the starting pitching department, and their collective ability to overpower hitters is something that could definitely come in handy in October.

Now then, how about the arms in the bullpen?

Relief Pitching

Both the 2006 Cardinals and the 2011 Cardinals offer fine testaments in favor of the notion that you can find a good closer anywhere at any time. 

The ’06 Cardinals, after all, didn’t stumble upon Wainwright’s impressive ability to close games until late in the season after Jason Isringhausen was lost to hip surgery. Likewise, the ’11 Cardinals didn’t make Jason Motte their closer until late in the season, and even then it wasn’t really official that he was the guy.

Wouldn’t you know it, the Cardinals are in the middle of more closer uncertainty late in the season this year. Edward Mujica has handled closing duties for the bulk of the season, but Trevor Rosenthal has seen action in the ninth inning recently as Mujica has gotten a break.

Either way, the Cardinals are poised to head into October with a closer at least as good as the ones they had in 2006 and 2011. Behold another table:

The season Rosenthal has had is the best among the four pictured here as far as WAR and FIP are concerned, and those are honors that one indeed earns when one strikes out over 30 percent of the batters he faces while maintaining a strong walk rate.

As for Mujica, ERA does him a favor. But FIP and WAR label him the worst of the bunch here. He’s showed off outstanding control, yes, but strikeouts are good and that’s not a department Mujica has excelled in.

He has excelled in WPA, however. That’s Win Probability Added, and it’s a stat that measures how players impact their team’s win expectancy. In addition to blowing Wainwright, Motte and Rosenthal out of the water in that department here, Mujica has also been among the elites as far as all 2013 relievers go. Per FanGraphs, only 10 relievers have him beat in WPA.

So whether they move forward with Mujica or Rosenthal as their postseason closer, the Cardinals are going to be in terrific shape. Perhaps not in better shape than the ’06 Cardinals or ’11 Cardinals given how well Wainwright and Motte performed in the postseason, but certainly just as good.

And you know what? The rest of St. Louis’ 2013 bullpen is also pretty darn good relative to the two championship clubs. Here’s a look at their MLB ranks compared to those of the ’06 and ’11 teams.

All three bullpens were/are middle of the road in terms of ERA. But FIP and WAR both favor the 2013 Cardinals pen. In its favor goes the nod.

So make it two points so far for the 2013 Cardinals over the two championship clubs. On to offense now.

Offense

It’s getting hard to remember a time when the Cardinals weren’t a strong offensive ballclub. They’ve been that way for ages, and nothing has changed this year. They’ve scored more runs than any other National League club.

But here’s a look at how they compare to the 2006 Cardinals and 2011 Cardinals in some key stats: 

There’s not much separation between the three clubs in batting average, but the 2013 Cardinals are beat in both on-base percentage and ISO—that being Isolated Power, a slugging percentage that ignores singles. And yeah, being inferior at getting on base and hitting for power is generally not a good place to be.

But then there’s wRC+. That’s Weighted Runs Created Plus, and it does the 2013 Cardinals a favor by rating them ahead of the ’06 Cardinals and reasonably close to the ’11 Cardinals.

This is important, because wRC+ is a stat that quantifies things relative to league average. Anything over 100 is above average. It’s best used for individual players rather than whole teams, granted, but in this case it reflects the depth of the 2013 club’s offense.

The 2006 Cardinals were notably better at getting on base and hitting for power than the 2013 Cardinals, but they did so in a day and age when getting on base and hitting for power was a lot easier than it is today. And while the ’06 Cardinals had Albert Pujols at the height of his power, only he and Chris Duncan logged over 200 plate appearances and posted a wRC+ over 130 in Cardinals uniforms.

The 2011 Cardinals, meanwhile, had four such players: Pujols, Allen Craig, Lance Berkman and Matt Holliday. Their offense was notably deeper.

As for the 2013 Cardinals, they have six such players: Craig, Holliday, Carlos Beltran, Yadier Molina, Matt Adams and (the extraordinary) Matt Carpenter. The depth of this offense is indeed noteworthy.

The picture doesn’t change that much if we remove Craig from the equation, as well we should given that the St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s Rick Hummel has reported that his status for the postseason is still in limbo with a foot injury. St. Louis general manager John Mozeliak told Hummel, “The way I’m always more comfortable dealing with players is when they’re cleared to go do baseball-related activities. He hasn’t been cleared for that yet.”

The Cards still have five 130 wRC+ guys even without him, and Adams is an ideal fill-in for Craig at first base. He’s not the hitter Craig is, but he’s unquestionably a superior source of power.

I’m not sure I would take the 2013 offense over the 2011 offense, which was well-stocked with middle-of-the-order hitters. But the 2013 offense is superior to the 2006 offense, and its depth makes it a good match for the 2011 offense.

So yeah, things are still looking good. Let’s wrap this up by turning our gaze to the field.

Defense

The 2013 Cardinals have pitching and hitting, which is good enough. A team can go far in October with such things.

But good defense? That’s a bonus, and it can make a difference. Especially if a defense is strong in the right areas.

This being baseball we’re talking about, “in the right areas” means up the middle of the field at catcher, shortstop, second base and center field. That’s where we’re going to focus our attention for a defensive comparison of the 2013 Cardinals to the 2006 and 2011 clubs.

What I did was take a look at the primary players who were manning the up-the-middle positions for the three clubs heading into the postseason. That means the following players for each team:

• 2006: Yadier Molina, David Eckstein, Ronnie Belliard, Jim Edmonds
• 2011: Molina, Rafael Furcal, Ryan Theriot/Skip Schumaker, Jon Jay
• 2013: Molina, Pete Kozma, Carpenter, Jay

Next, I went and looked up how each player did in FanGraph’s new “Defense” ratings, which consider how players perform defensively while also factoring in position adjustments.

Then I made the following table:

*Theriot and Schumaker combined.

There’s a lot about the ’06 championship team that invites criticism, but let it never be said that it wasn’t strong up the middle defensively. The same can be said of the 2013 Cardinals.

And that’s not surprising. Molina is still a living defensive legend behind the dish. Kozma is only playing because of his defense at shortstop. Carpenter’s defense at second is pretty good for a guy who learned the position over the winter. Only Jay’s defense fails to impress, but I think most Cardinals fans will agree with me when I say that this is likely a case of a good defender having a weird statistical season than it is a case of a legitimately bad defender.

This year’s Cardinals have weaknesses elsewhere, of course. David Freese has had a horrible season at third base. Adams is not a good defensive first baseman. Holliday is typically one of the worst defensive left fielders in the league. Beltran is a shell of his old defensive self out in right field. Hit the ball to any one of them, and a mistake could happen.

However, there’s no question it’s better to be weak on the corners than it is to be weak up the middle. These Cardinals have a decent margin for error defensively because of their strength up the middle, and it’s yet another area they can boast about in the company of the last two championship teams.

In Conclusion, Gentlemen…

The 2006 Cardinals won only 83 regular-season games. The 2011 Cardinals won only 90.

After seeing what we’ve seen, is it really any wonder that this year’s Cardinals team has 95 wins and counting?

No it’s not. They have good starting pitching, a good bullpen, a good offense and are strong up the middle defensively. Relative to the ’06 and ’11 championship teams, the ’13 Cardinals are considerably more balanced.

That’s not a guarantee that this club is going to win the World Series, mind you. The Cardinals couldn’t win it in 2004 or 2005 despite the fact they won 100 games both years with terrific all-around ballclubs. The postseason has a mind of its own, and absolutely no reservations about devouring teams that seem well-equipped to slay it.

But don’t let that reality get you down, Cardinals fans. Go ahead and have high hopes. This year’s team is worthy of them.

If you want to talk baseball, hit me up on Twitter.

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On deck is the season finale of the thrilling new drama that’s gripped the nation: “Puigmania: The Puigtastical Journey of Yasiel Puig.”

In Episode I, the mysterious young hero burst onto the scene with the Los Angeles Dodgers and started destroying baseballs and sharpshooting baserunners. In Episode II, the young hero was dealt a reality check and began to rub some people the wrong way with his brash style, earning him a reputation in some circles as more of an anti-hero than a true hero. He’s no Superman. He’s Wolverine!

Episode III is up next, and all we know is the premise. It is to be Puig in the postseason, baseball’s ultimate stage. We know not how it will end. Will the young hero thrive? Or will he crumble?

[Dramatic music.]

OK, we can get serious now. I started things off on the silly side because I wanted to make it somewhat clear off the bat that I’m not here to do what the headline might suggest. I’m not here to indulge in Puig bashing. It’s a thing, but not my thing.

The question at hand, however, is one worth asking because…well, consider the following.

Puig hit .305/.381/.477 in his first 52 games. In those, the Dodgers went a ridiculous 40-12. But in 23 September games, Puig has only hit .231/.341/.487. The Dodgers’ record: 10-13.

It’s not all Puig‘s fault that the Dodgers have had a mediocre month. Nor, indeed, are his numbers all that bad. But he has definitely slipped, and that the team has also slipped makes the following deduction out to be fair game: The Dodgers are better when Puig is better.

So he better be ready for the postseason. The Dodgers need him to be.

Since I want to keep the psychoanalysis at a minimum here, let’s let a few numbers have their say about Puig‘s postseason readiness. That’s a process that starts with taking a look at how he’s performed against the clubs the Dodgers could come up against in October.

Before the World Series, those would be the Atlanta Braves, St. Louis Cardinals, Pittsburgh Pirates and Cincinnati Reds. Puig has faced all four of them, so how’s he done?

Pretty good, actually. Here’s a nifty table, with numbers courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com:

If you’re in the dark about ISO, that’s Isolated Power. It’s basically a slugging percentage that ignores singles, hence the reason Puig‘s ISO against the Pirates is zero. He didn’t have any extra-base hits against them in his 13 plate appearances.

But against the Braves, Cardinals and Reds, Puig did well. It’s a good thing that his numbers are particularly strong against Atlanta and St. Louis, as the Dodgers will be playing either one of them in the National League Division Series.

So yeah, encouraging stuff. 

To an extent, anyway.

The big caveats should be obvious. One is the small number of plate appearances. It’s nice that Puig has done well against the upcoming competition, but the small sample sizes make it hard to project success while wearing a straight face.

The other big caveat: The postseason isn’t the regular season. It’s a different animal, one that lures possible prey into a high-pressure environment, weakens them and then feeds. Some players are immune to the pressure. Others aren’t.

This is a harder topic to tackle from statistical perspective. To my knowledge, the dweebs at the Sabermetric Research Facility have yet to come up with a way to quantify a player’s guts. Maybe GARP (Guts Above Replacement Player) will be a thing someday, but it’s not now.

The best we have are leverage stats, which of course are designed to tell us how well players have performed in low-, mid- and high-pressure situations. They’re not terribly predictive, but they’re the kind of stats that can give us the lowdown on how clutch players have (or haven’t) been.

Unfortunately, pressure has not agreed with Puig during his rookie season.

Here’s a table, with data courtesy of FanGraphs:

In low-leverage situations, Puig has thrived. There’s been less ownage in medium-leverage situations, but he’s still been a highly productive player. 

But in high-leverage situations? Not so good. Puig‘s production has crumbled, and that strikeout rate is a doozy. 

Puig‘s issues in late and close situations are part of the problem. Per Baseball-Reference.com, he’s hitting .200 with a .284 OBP in such situations, with a 37.3 strikeout percentage to boot. The one good thing to be said is that he has a .233 ISO in late and close situations, so suffice it to say he’s more or less the definition of “hit or miss” when the pressure is at its highest.

That Puig hasn’t performed in pressure situations could be coincidence, in which case there’s no point in seeing these numbers as signs of an inevitable tragic end to his season. 

But then there’s the possibility that these stats are a symptom of something more real than coincidence. They could be confirmation that Puig tries to do too much when the heat is on.

I’ve gotten the sense in watching him over the months that this is a real issue with him. And while we’re admittedly straying into psychoanalysis now, I don’t feel like insinuating that Puig‘s focus has a tendency to wander in pressure situations requires that big of a leap.

That’s because the guy’s focus tends to wander, period. 

That’s not still a secret at this point, right? Puig‘s been a live wire since the moment he first stepped between the lines back in June. And for all the electricity he’s provided, he’s also provided his share of facepalm-worthy moments. Ugly at-bats. Bad throws. Baserunning blunders. Et cetera.

Since Ramona Shelburne of ESPN Los Angeles nailed them in her recent (and quite good) piece on Puig, I’ll let her do the honor of asking the questions that come to mind:

The Dodgers have but one question: Can they trust [Puig] come playoff time?

‘You don’t want to break his spirit,’ Dodgers manager Don Mattingly said. ‘I love the way he plays. But you don’t want it to end up costing us later.’

 And later:

What if, in Game 2 of the National League Division Series, Puig ignores the cutoff man, tries to throw out a guy he has very little chance of getting at third base, and the ball skips away and into the stands, allowing the runner to score? What if that’s the difference in the game, the series?

This stuff should sound familiar if you’ve read any “WHAT ARE THE DODGERS GOING TO DO ABOUT PUIG?!” columns. Seemingly all of them questioned whether his recklessness could be cured before it hurt the Dodgers. 

It was easy to roll one’s eyes at the time. But with the postseason looming and the Dodgers having come violently back down to earth in September, it’s not so easy now. Puig has failed to become a fundamentally sound ballplayer overnight at any point during the season. He’s not going to do so now just because the timing is convenient. It’s fair to expect there to be some, ahem, episodes in October.

Puig does, however, have one redeeming quality when it comes to his episodes: He has a tendency to make up for them.

The video above this text? That’s of a pinch-hit homer Puig hit in a game against the Miami Marlins back in August. If it doesn’t ring a bell, this would be the same game for which he was initially benched by Mattingly after he showed up late.

Remember the next time Puig was benched? That was a little later in the month when Mattingly got fed up with Puig‘s demeanor in a game against the Chicago Cubs and decided to replace him with Skip Schumaker midway through the proceedings.

The next time Puig played, he went 4-for-5 with a double and an RBI.

More recently, did you see Puig get picked off by Miguel Montero a couple of weeks ago? A small moment in the grand scheme of Puigmania, but it’s worth noting he later went on to hit a home run in what was a three-hit day.

While we’re talking about Montero and the Diamondbacks, remember how Puig responded to that nasty brawl back in June? Over his next eight games, he went 14-for-32.

I’m sure there are instances that are slipping my mind, but this is Puig for you. The bad stuff has happened, and then the good stuff has had a tendency to come and wash it away.

This is mainly because Puig is a talented ballplayer. Talented ballplayers are going to do good things more often than they’re going to do bad things (see also: those numbers in low- and medium-leverage situations). 

But these things have happened also because Puig is a talented major league ballplayer.

That emphasis is an important one to make, as there’s a long list of players who can vouch that talent alone isn’t a guaranteed ticket to success in the majors. The ability to adjust and bounce back are of paramount importance, and Puig has shown that he has both—Ben Lindbergh of Baseball Prospectus did a great piece on Puig‘s ability to adjust that’s worth your time.

If Puig didn’t have these abilities, he would have been back in the minors weeks ago.

I therefore suppose the “thick-skinned” label fits him well enough. As distressing as his mental errors and his struggles in pressure situations are with the postseason just around the corner, this is a guy who’s had an excellent rookie season for a big-market, high-profile team with the spotlight on him from day one.

Oh, and he’s only 22. Oh, and he was even younger when he fled his home country, pursuing whatever means necessary to eventually find the spotlight in which he’s thrived.

I’m not without doubts when it comes to Puig. The next day I am will be the first.

But even with those doubts…Yeah, I think he can handle October.

If you want to talk baseball, hit me up on Twitter.

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