A lot of material for the World Series on a whole was covered in the Game One post, including pertinent numbers and series plas on one of tonight's pitchers. Refer back to that for anything not covered below.
LEGEND
Opp wRC+ Opposing offense’s wRC+ against L/RHP this season
DEF Team Runs Prevented/projected lineup(Roster Resource) Fielding Run Value
B30 Bullpen SIERA/xFIP/FIP average this post-season (this is new)
BSR: Projected Lineup Base Running Runs
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Yankees @ Dodgers
Regular Season: If you ask a casual fan or television analyst, they will probably tell you that Carlos Rodon had a great second half because he had a 2.91 ERA, compared to 4.63 in the first half. That’s not exactly it though.
First 16 starts: 15.8 K-BB%, 10.5% Barrels/BBE, 43.4 HardHit%, 3.86 ERA
Next 13 starts: 24.4 K-BB%, 10% Barrels/BBE, 38 HardHit%, but 4.52 ERA.
Last three starts: 10.4 K-BB%, 17.4% Barrels/BBE, but 32.6 HardHit% and 2.16 ERA
The most prevailing theme was the barrels. On the season, his 3.96 ERA was within half a run of all estimators, but with only a 3.78 SIERA below four. If we get the July and August version of Rodon, the Yankees are in good shape with less contact, meaning less hard contact. Another problem is that RHBs had a .323 wOBA and .330 xwOBA against him this year. The Dodgers have bats who can hit you hard from either side of the plate, though you could argue that their LHBs are slightly more potent because that’s the side of the plate Ohtani bats from.
Pitch modeling absolutely loved Rodon this season (122 Stuff+, 103 Pitching+). The fastball (49.4%) and slider (26%) each merited PitchingBot grades between 56 and 59, though the Dodgers has positive run values (slightly) against each post-trade deadline.
Post-Season: The story of Rodon’s start in Game Two against the Royals was one of both BABIP and hard contact. He struck out seven of 18 batters, but with seven hits. He also allowed seven batted balls with an exit velocity of at least 95 mph and only one of those was on the ground. The fastball velocity sat at 97 mph, up 1.6 mph from his season average and harder than he average in every single game outside his last one before the All-Star game against the Orioles, knowing he’d have some extra rest. There did not seem to be any concentrated effort to capture the edges of the strike zone though and some of his pitches were just a bit too fat. Rodon also generated 12 whiffs, not easy against the Royals.
Rodon dominated Cleveland in a way you wouldn’t expect in Game One of the LCS, striking out nine over six three hit innings. Up nearly half a mph on his fastball, which was down over a mph from the ALDS start, Rodon got nine whiffs with his slider, but a stunning 12 with his fastball. In all, 52 of the 93 pitches he threw were fastballs with 25 sliders and also 25 swings and misses. He wasn’t exactly dotting corners and went unpunished for several fastballs left right over the heart of the plate. The Guardians put 12 batted balls in fair territory, five of them hard hit, only one of those on the ground.
Rodon struck out another six Guardians in the deciding game of the ALCS. Sixty five of his 85 pitches were fastballs or sliders, the velocity on the former sitting at 96.1 mph, slightly higher than game one and up 0.7 mph from his season average. Those two pitches accumulated nine of his 13 swings and misses on 37 swings with another seven called strikes. Rodon lived almost entirely above the belt here, hardly ever touching the lower arm-side quadrant. There were only three hard hit batted balls out of 13 events, with one of the three on the ground and the other two as line drives.
Opp wRC+: 121 (123 Home, 120 Post-Season)
DEF: 6/17
B30: 4.36 (4.23 FIP/4.47 xFIP/4.38 SIERA)
BSR: 2
Regular Season: Yoshi Yamamoto posted a dominant 22.6 K-BB% this season, though the 8.1% Barrels/BBE and 41.3 HardHit% were a bit more marginal. All estimators were within half a run of his 3.00 ERA though and went in both directions. He shut down LHBs (.237 wOBA, .283 xwOBA), while RHBs had some success against him (.317 wOBA, .298 xwOBA). Yamanoto had just a 100 Stuff+, but 106 Pitching+ and used three pitches 88% of the time with a 55 grade fastball (40.4%) setting the pace. Then a curveball (23.1%) and splitter (24.2%) at 64 and 58 respectively. He did not exceed 18 batters faced or 80 batters in any of his four starts after returning from the IL or since June 7th and only threw a combined 123 pitches in his two NLDS starts. Yamamoto up ticked all the way to 73 pitches in his only NLCS start (Game Four).
Post-Season: The Padres roughed up Yamamoto again in game one of the NLDS. Two walks, one strikeout and home run plus five runs over three innings (16 batters). Twenty-five of his 60 pitches were fastballs and only 0.3 mph above his season average (less than most pitchers), although he only had three regular season starts higher. He only generated five whiffs, 10 foul balls and six called strikes. Of his four hard hit batted balls, just one was on the ground.
Yamamoto finally solved the Padres for the first time in four starts in game five of the NLDS. He sat 1.2 mph above his season average velocity in this start and threw that fastball on 32 of his 63 pitches. He threw no other pitch more than 11 times. Yamamoto kept the ball down below the letters and even mostly below the belt, resulting in just three hard hit batted balls off the ground (out of 14 BBE total), but he also generated just four swings and misses. That’s certainly partly because the Padres are the top contact team in the league.
In the 73 pitches against the Mets mentioned above, Yamamoto generated eight strikeouts, despite sitting at 95 mph, down 0.5 mph from his season average velocity. He did enjoy similar wind effects to Walker Buehler, mentioned in yesterday’s post, which may have helped lead to the 16 swings and misses he generated, at least there on four different pitches. He, again, mostly avoided throwing pitches above the belt and the inability or unwillingness to elevate his fastball effectively has occasionally been an issue for Yamamoto. Luckily for Yamamoto, while he allowed four hard hit balls out of nine batted ball events, just one was elevated and it was on a fastball. Seven of his nine batted ball events overall were on the ground.
Opp wRC+: 120 (117 Road, 112 Post-Season)
DEF: -4/14
B30: 4.25 (3.94 FIP/4.72 xFIP/4.09 SIERA)
BSR: -9
With Game One of the World Series just starting, we won’t have an official line until much later on Friday night. I currently have the Dodgers as small favorite for the game and slightly more moderate F5. I also have the total a bit below nine with a neutral umpire in Andy Fletcher.
I’ve already posted a few Rodon strikeout plays for the series and do think he can have some success missing bats. Regardless, both of these pitchers have allowed hard contact at a higher than average rate when contact is made and both lean towards more success for RHBs. Rodon could see some top of the lineup LHBs a third time if pitching well, while Yamamoto seems to be at a twice through limit almost no matter what. It’s possible both could rack up the strikeouts, along with a few barrels.
Updates will be posted here if there’s anything else worth noting.
Update:
Needed every one of the five runs scored in extra innings, including a walk off grand slam from the Dodgers to avoid a disastrous night where nothing went according to expectation. Well, Gerrit Cole striking out another four batters was not entirely unexpected. He pitched well, but if Freeman's warning track fly ball in the fifth were hit at Yankee Stadium, we'd have a different narrative. Jack Flaherty came out up multiple mph on his heater, including a 96 mph first pitch that was three mph harder than any of his other first pitches this post-season.
Similar, neutral weather expected for Saturday night. Updated the numbers above (bullpens and team wRC+ for the post-season). Not only can I not find an edge in either the full game or F5 line, I can't find anything of positive value at all. I did consider an exotic on FD for Yamamoto to go six up, six down, but had nothing to base it on. Already have the Rodon strikeout prop to root for here and that may have to be enough.
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